Glorious Advance
by Firestorm Studios
Summary: TributeSequel to SkyLandOcean's 'We Are Family'. The first Organization XIII returns, with a fleet of warships to destroy entire worlds. Humanity has only an inferior fleet and a few worlds left. Can the strength of the brave turn the tide? COMPLETED!
1. Under Siege

This is Firestorm Studios (Tom, one and only member) here with a different Fanfiction than usual – this is a tribute, and a sequel, to SkyLandOcean's wonderful stories 'The Youngest, Newest Hippest Organization XIII', 'We Are Family', 'Emitte Lucem Et Veritatem', and 'A Sick And Twisted Game'. If you want to read this story, READ THEM FIRST OR YOU WON'T UNDERSTAND A THING. Anyway, those 4 stories are the pinnacle of Fanfiction, and I am honoured that she let me write the fifth installment in the series. Let this begin!

This Chapter is remastered! A lot of the spacing, scripture, and errors have been fixed!

Glorious Advance

Chapter 1 – Under Siege

When Sora defeated the darkness in his first adventure, a new age began – the After Darkness age. In the year 2 A.D., Sora encountered an entirely new Organization XIII, consisting of all new members. Both the Organization and Sora thought that the opposite was going to destroy the Crystal of Darkness – a crystal that could destroy every Nobody in the universe, and put the universe in a serious state of disrepair. They worked together to seal the Crystal, and in the process released the originals of the New Organization, along with Sora's own twin sister, Sola.

But the New Organization was not as innocent as they seemed. They devised a plan to use Kingdom Hearts to fire a massive laser through the Crystal of Darkness and destroy every human world. This was the Rebellion of the Nobodies, but it was successfully quelled by the Keybearers, the Originals, and, ironically, members of the New Organization themselves. This was the fall of Xemnasa, daughter of Xemnas, every bit as evil and powerful as her father. At the end of the Rebellion, Xolas, Sola's Nobody, sacrificed herself to stop the human universe from destruction.

While all of this was happening, King Mickey and the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee decided to begin a military force to patrol space, armed to the teeth, should the battle ever grow to all-out war. This human military was called the Alliance of the Worlds. Hundreds of thousands of humans from all the human worlds abandoned their lifestyles and customs to sport a rifle throughout the universe, and be on one of thousands of massive, kilometer-long human battleships ready to combat any threat to the human race.

However, something unexpected happened. Sola, wanting her Nobody back more than anything, unknowingly opened the Infinity Void, where Nobodies go after death. Xolas was back, but something happened. Although Axel, Zexion, Roxas and Demyx all were with the humans, the remaining nine members of the first Organization XIII stormed out of the Infinity Void, with a Nobody fleet outnumbering the human fleet. But it would be easy to defeat the Nobodies. Or so humanity thought.

Bursts of plasma – electric fire in the millions of degrees – hit the sands of the Destiny Islands, turning the sands into liquid glass, which shattered and solidified in mid-air. People screamed as Nobody Dusks advanced. Brave human soldiers fired their rifles at the Nobodies. Several of them exploded into nothingness, but others kept advancing. Suddenly, Nobody Samurais jumped out of nowhere and slashed the soldiers dead.

"SOLA!" Sora yelled, groping for his sister's hand. She managed to grasp it. "Everyone else is already gone!" Sora yelled. "I think Mum's with them!"

Sola nodded, and ran with him towards a group of soldiers. "GET INTO THE SHIP!" A Sergeant screamed at them, right before the deafening bang, and the Sergeant was vaporized by a plasma blast. Sora and Sola quickly ran into the human troop dropship, not daring to look back. The soldiers retreated into the dropship. It rose vertically, and sped into the sky. Plasma whizzed past the ship, and the dropship sped toward a massive human ship, labeled the AOTW _Rinoa_, and entered one of its hangars.

The soldiers huddled the people out into the hangar, filled with crying, injured and terrified civilians of the Destiny Islands. There were computers listing those who had made it off and who hadn't. The casualties and death lists were enormous. Thousands dead. Sola ran over to the only unoccupied computer, and searched for 'Katamori'. The names Sora, Sola and Sara came up on the screen. Sola clicked on her mother's name.

_Katamori, Sara Claire_

_Status: Killed, after being tortured by the Nobodies to reveal the location of her son and daughter._

Sola screamed to the sky. In space, four Nobody warships fired great beams of plasma at the Destiny Islands. The world exploded and crumbled into the void.

-a-

3 Months later, into the Human-Nobody War. Every human world has been destroyed, except for 4: Agrabah, Traverse Town, Twilight Town, and Hollow Bastion.

0934 local time, Sept. 17, the Year 2 A.D., on AOTW Space Refit & Refuel Station 'Duty', in orbit around Traverse Town.

In the armoured interior of the human Refit and Refuel station 'Duty', The figure in a red cloak similar to that of Organization XIII could barely hear the thumping of shells and plasma in the void of space outside. The person paid little to no attention to the cries of panic going on all around her across the human fleet's radio.

"Sir! 3 new ships emerged out of Subspace... Dead in the middle of our battle formation!" A panicked young commander cried over the radio.

"Son, calm down – hold them off and await reinforcements." Said the voice of Admiral Leon.

"Additional contacts, coming in too fast!" The young commander said, sounding terrified.

"If overrun, proceed to survivor rally point Alpha! No-one else is having much luck" Leon instructed calmly but firmly.

The figure proceeded through the station, passing through a door and summoning two Keyblades, the Oathkeeper and Oblivion.

"Admiral, you can't let them maintain orbit. The _Firestorm_'s almost gone!" A gruff voice came.

"I'm trying to, but we lost what little advantage we had on our perimeter!" Leon yelled back.

The figure proceeded to head into an elevator, which quickly began racing down to it's destination.

"5th Fleet, draw the Nobody ships into the range of the fighters." Admiral Leon commanded.

"They don't have enough numbers or firepower to take out a Nobody Capital Fleet!" The young Admiral protested.

"Well then, your pilots get 'em!" the gruff admiral said back. "If they get down onto Traverse Town, it's the goddamned apocalypse!"

The elevator slowed down and crawled to a stop. The doors opened, and the figure walked out.

"I'M ASKING YOU ONE MORE TIME, ADMIRAL! TARGET THAT ORBITING FLEET!" The gruff admiral yelled at Leon over the radio.

"And let that Organization ship come in and sweep us away? That's insanity – we'd be all gone in seconds! There's nothing more I can do!" Leon said hopelessly.

The figure swung back it's cloak, to reveal Sola, sister of Sora. She was wearing the red cloak as a cape and wearing an outfit almost identical to her brother's first outfit, except it was dark blue instead of red, and instead of morphing into shorts, the suit morphed at the waist into a skirt which went down to her knees. Two brown belts wrapped around her torso, clinging the red cloak to her, and also a sheath for a sword or rifle. She wore purple versions of Sora's shoes.

Suddenly over the radio came a new, female voice. "Their assault is too intense... Our ships defences are too stretched out – Another group of them can easily punch through!"

Sola continued walking through the hangar, listening to the voice of the Intelligence Officer Namine.

"Commander Alex, tell your ships to hold their position. Reinforcements are the on the scope."

The gruff Admiral contacted back immediately. "All the Keybearers, and the entire fleet is engaged, Namine. With respect, what the hell sort of reinforcement have you got?"

Sola looked out the hangar observatory. Through there, visible, was the world of Traverse town, with explosions going off all over and around it, with massive beams of red energy melting human space battleships to the ground.

"The reinforcements are massing above your position... Proximity zero." Namine said to the Commander as she readied herself for what was to come.

"Just one point of information: It is possible to miss in space. In fact, it's rather guaranteed. So what then?" Namine asked, interested.

"Well then, I'm lucky that I don't miss." Sola said, and pulled down the hangar release trigger. The doors opened with a roar, and unsecured objects began flying out into space. A large bomb started sliding down towards the void, and as it flew out into zero-gee, Sola jumped after it and grabbed it.

She flew downwards, attracted by Traverse Town's gravity. Below her, a Nobody warship drifted serenely but menacingly. A few missiles streaked past Sola, hitting the ship and taking out it's shields. 'Right on time.' Sola thought.

She grabbed one end of the bomb with either of her hands, started the 15-second timer and kicked it downwards.

The 15 seconds passed quickly. The bomb was a 30-megaton nuclear weapon, blowing a hole clean through the ship, and Sola smiled in satisfaction as all sorts of Nobody vehicles, weapons and many of the monstrosities themselves flew out into space.

She flew silently into the hole, the Nobody ship sealing the hole with their ship's shields. They touched down silently. "Greetings and felicitations." Sola said as she landed. All the Nobodies turned, and aimed plasma weapons at her. Sola readied Oathkeeper and Oblivion.

Sola darted forward, and the Nobodies opened fire. She blocked the shots with their Keyblades, following by jumping into the brunt of their troops and slashing her Keyblades in circles – a barrage which few survived. Sola grabbed one by the neck, threw it and took it's plasma weapon. She continued to block the incoming fire as she sent away the Oathkeeper and began firing the plasma weapon. Sola charged at the Berserker, which lifted and brought down it's massive hammer – only to be blocked by Sola's Keyblade. As she killed it, it's hammer hovered above her head. She jumped up, grabbed it, and crushed a group of Dusks with it. A cluster of Samurais cluttered towards them, and Xolas threw her Keyblade, sending half of them up in smoke.

"Samurais?" Sola said to herself. "Roxas is on our side! How are we fighting Samurais?" She jumped off the wall at another Dusk.

A sudden thought occurred to her - "_Roxas may be, but the Organization can just as easily take weapons and Nobody control as they can give it out to their members. The Samurais are probably with a different member!"_ She finished thinking this as she killed the last Samurai by bashing it's helmet in with it's own plasma weapon.

She decided to proceed through the ship with stealth, managing to avoid alarms and patrols, and killing Nobodies silently from behind if they had to. Finally, she came to the door which would put her into the ship's bridge – their command centre. Abandoning all stealth, Sola ran in, killing many of the crew with her stolen plasma weapon right off the bat, and following up by throwing in a grenade. She ducked out of the room, let the door close, and heard a satisfying explosion from beyond, and a low rumbling, from beyond. She ran in, with Oblivion in hand.

The command chair swung around, and out got a figure in a black Organization XIII cloak. Sola had no time to move as the figure grabbed Sola's shoulder, then twisted her around and held a pink blade to her head.

"Don't move, Keybearer!" Marluxia barked at her. Sola didn't dare move. "You look familiar…" He said. He glanced at the girl he had trapped in his arms. "You!" He said, throwing Sola to the floor. "Where is Sora? Where is the boy with the Keyblade? I know you're his sister. Don't lie to me… You'll regret it." The pink scythe was held to her face.

"I don't know." Sola said. "But next time you see him, you might want to consider ducking." Marluxia brought back his scythe to swing, but this time Sola was too fast for him, and Marluxia found a Keyblade at his throat. Number XI stood up and held his hands up in defeat.

"I don't think it's quite that simple." Sola said, slashing Marluxia's stomach with the Keyblade. He gagged, doubled over and fell to the ground. There was nothing he could do – he began to dissolve.

"Good riddance." Sola said, picking up Marluxia's scythe and throwing it at the control board on the ship's bridge. The ship began to drift sideways. Sola suddenly realized she had very little time, and ran to the hangar, where she flew off in a captured human Nobody troop dropship.

As she flew toward an AOTW ship, She watched, behind her, the pink Nobody battleship with a massive 'XI' on it crash into a smaller fleet of about 14 Nobody destroyers. They exploded in a ball of purple fire and were not visible after the fire had died down. She docked at the AOTW ship _Meteora_.

-b-

Aboard the _Meteora_, Captain Cloud Strife surveyed the carnage taking place around him. He had settled back into his old ship, _Meteora,_ after he had lost almost everyone aboard the AOTW _Advent of War_ at the battle of Port Royal. He quite liked the _Meteora_, though it was an old heavy battleship. It had 24 missile pods, each one packed with 48 MSAM (Military Standard Attack Missile) weapons. It had two massive burst cannons – one for taking out a Nobody ship's shield, the other for a knockout punch. They had well over a hundred turrets on the hull, if enemy fighters got close. But most of all, it was the fastest ship in the fleet. So fast in fact, that the people at Twilight Town's shipyard construction had painted two long streaks of red paint horizontally down the ship. Strictly nonregulation and they would have to go, but secretly Cloud liked the ornamentation.

Best of all, he was equipped with an A.I. Military Artificial Intelligence units were incredibly hard to get nowadays, and Cloud had been given an AI called Teague – as it turns out, he was an AI who had been on the legendary ship _Skies of the Land and Ocean_, commanded by Admiral Heather. That single ship, with it's 3 main burst cannons and 108 missile pods, had taken out well over 30 Nobody ships before the Organization brought in one of their Capital Ships, no. III – Xaldin. If it weren't for Xaldin, Disney Castle might still be alive.

"Sir." Teague said. "It seems that a captured Nobody dropship containing Sola has entered the hangar. She apparently killed Marluxia and made his ship drift into a smaller fleet." Teague appeared on the pedestal, and informed Cloud, who nodded. "She is requesting a squad of marines to move down and assist ground forces."

Cloud nodded again. "Request granted. Teague, you're going with them. If we're moving into active combat against the Nobody ships, then we might not make it out. If that happens, we don't want you here. If the Nobodies found you, they would have unprecedented access to everything. Our weapons research, our ship types, strategies, force deployment across the universe and –" He paused for a moment. "The location of Twilight Town or worse… Hollow Bastion. So suit yourself up for data chip transfer." Teague nodded, and disappeared.

"I understand." Teague said. On the side, Cloud's special guest moved. She wore a white military jumpsuit, her chest littered with campaign medals – every single one except the Prisoner of War Medal. She wore the single gold shoulderpad of a First-class Admiral, which was protruding from her left shoulder.

"Cloud, I'm going to assist in the ground engagement." She said simply.

Cloud turned to her. "Request denied. It's far too dangerous – we can't afford to lose an Admiral."

The girl picked up a massive Gunblade – it had a closed in handle which move into three massive barrels in a triangle shape, with a section protruding out the back for reloads. It also had a massive blade about a metre and a half long sticking out of the gap between the two bottom barrels. She called it Forward Unto Dawn. She laughed at the Captain.

"Captain Strife." Admiral Heather said, taking Teague's slot out of the machine. "That wasn't a request. I'm taking my fight to the surface. And I'm pretty sure Teague will be pretty safe in the hands of this… Sola. After all, he chose her." And with that, she took the elevator down to the hangar where the dropship was waiting, leaving behind a very stunned Cloud Strife.

-c-

1327 local time, Sept. 17, the year 2 A.D., human 'Roger'-class troop dropship, flying above Traverse Town (URGENT ORDER: Under attack by Nobody forces. Immediate code-red order for ALL AOTW ships not on a guard post to proceed immediately to Traverse Town)

Sola, with Keyblade at the ready and a human shotgun in her back sheath - stood near the cockpit of the human 'Roger'-class dropship - she wanted to be nowhere near the exposed exit of the back. Around her sat around eight soldiers, all handling a rifle of some purpose. Just behind the pilots was Admiral Heather, and the first thing Heather herself had done was request permission to join a ground engagement - Anywhere was fine, at any time.

"The 'Roger' dropship the 2 squads were in took 2 artillery hits in the nose – a fatal hit. The drop troopers were forced to jump to the ground manually." Teague informed them.

"Two drop trooper platoons? Why are WE here? They're the best of the best." Sola said back.

"Unfortunately, the big welcome's been cut short - the Nobodies already had ground level, so they wiped most of the drop troopers out before they even hit the ground." Heather informed them.

"Would you like a full casualty report?" Teague asked, appearing on the data system each soldier had put into their uniform or strapped onto their wrist - it allowed them to insert and effectively operate all sorts of technology, and the type of AI chip Teague had could fit into that slot, therefore Teague appeared as a red hologram, a figure with spiky short hair, wearing a combat vest, armour plating going from hips-down, and advanced metal gloves and boots. AI types are revealed by what they carry. Intelligence AIs did not carry anything. Teaching-Assistance AIs carried a book, among many other types. Teague was a military AI, and so he carried a 15th century rapier.

"No, thanks." Sola said. "But I need to know if any Keybearers were in the battle." Teague took 1/35th of a second to access the files. "1/35th of a second, I think you need to put some new batteries in your data-reading system." Teague joked. "No, but seriously - This particular piece of real estate is so important that two Keybearers are in the fight. I'm sorry, but due to recent reports of Nobodies finding and assassinating important military figures by hacking human radio traffic prevents me from telling you the names or condition of the two."

Sola opened her mouth to complain, but was quickly interrupted by Heather, who held up a hand to silence them. "Incoming transmission. Patching it through." The pilot said.

The voice of a marine filled the air. "We have a red danger alert - landing zone is dominated by a massive Nobody artillery cannon - recommend you abort the drop, and try elsewhere repeat - recommend mission abort and reconsideration!"

"Roger, that Reconnaissance-1. Pending decision – await further instructions." Said the pilot. The Co-pilot turned to Heather. "It's all up to you, Admiral."

"We're going in! It's time to get brutal, Marines!"

The 'Roger' flew over the drop zone, revealing several of the Nobodies. Heather, without warning, ran and leapt out of the dropship, and diving at the Nobodies below. She aimed her massive gun, cocked it and fired once, Three massive shells (yes, each the size of a can of lemonade) flew out at supersonic speed, creating a shockwave which froze many of the Dusks. The three massive shells, unable to cope with being so big and fired so fast, shattered and rained thousand of tiny hot projectiles at the enemy. At least two thirds of the enemy exploded and vanished into thin air. Sola jumped next, throwing her Keyblade, killing about 3, and then pulling out her shotgun, diving toward two Nobodies. One of them, a dancer, simply crumpled and exploded when the shotgun spat about 25 tiny bullets into it's skull, and she shot the other, a Berserker, seeing dozens of holes appear in it's armour before it fell. The marines landed the Roger, and clambered out, joining the fighting in a series of gunshots. Within seconds, the Nobodies were defeated with no casualties. They proceeded down a ramp, and a drop trooper came up the ramp. He covered in grime and human blood. He carried his gun in one hand, and his other arm was in a splint. "Admiral Heather! I'm Corporal Paratz, with drop trooper 'Diego' company. The command point is this way - follow me."

The group followed, but while walking, Heather addressed the marine. "Soldier, you're in terrible shape. Have you people in ordered for evacuation of your wounded?"

"Don't take pity on me, Admiral," the marine said. "I'm one of the lucky ones."

The command point had blood in most places. There were screams, medics everywhere, running between patients. At the end of the point however, was her brother, Sora.

Only thing was, he was lying on a stretcher covered in blood. There was a medic beside him, pumping his hands furiously into Sora's chest. "C'mon! C'mon!" He yelled to the comatose boy. "Stay with us, Sora!"

Sola cried out. "Sora got hit as soon as we dropped – he got hit in mid-air with four others!" Paratz said.

"Who's in charge now, Corporal? You did have a second-in-command, right?" Teague asked from Sola's wrist.

"Yes - Lieutenant Riku, sir. He's pinned down up front - you guys are a Godsend!"

"Alright," said Heather. "Sola, you go with him and assist our people. I'm going to evacuate the wounded and dead."

Sola looked at Sora on the verge of tears, wondering if he was with the former or latter.

"Sola, we have to move on. Your brother has survived more than a plasma cut." Heather said, and Sola nodded and sniffed back her tears. She had to keep going.

Sola followed Riku up a few flights of stairs and passed a heap of marines all firing on landing below them. They reached a doorway to a balcony. Behind the cover of the wall, away from enemy fire, with Way To Dawn clutched close to him, was Riku.

"Hey, Riku!" Paratz yelled.

"Yeah?"

"Is it clear?"

Suddenly, a 10 metre section of the wall beside Riku was blown away with a great blast that sent flaming shrapnel everywhere. Riku coughed.

"You tell me." He said.

Paratz swore in a different language, and yelled, "Friendlies, move it out, covering fire!" Sola was first out, gun blazing.


	2. Human Losses

This Chapter is remastered! A lot of the spacing, scripture, and errors have been fixed!

Glorious Advance

Chapter 2 – Human Losses

Inside dropship 2, all of Ares' marines were loading a weapon of some sort. Ares loaded a fresh clip into Angel, and holstered Demon, already fully loaded.

Kevin blew into the ammo receptor of his Sniper Rifle to clear it of dust, then slammed home a pack of four 10.5 cm armour-piercing bullets. He then picked up his Marine helmet and placed it on head, then turning on the sight enhancer on the helmet. The little green screen hovering over his right eye flashed to show that it was on, and registered Kevin's retina as it's owner.

The radio crackled to life. "We have a red danger alert - landing zone is dominated by a massive Nobody artillery cannon - recommend you abort the drop, and try elsewhere repeat - recommend mission abort and reconsideration!"

"Roger, that Reconnaissance-1. Pending decision – await further instructions. It's all up to you, Admiral."

"We're going in! Time to get brutal, Marines!"

Ares punched Kevin on the shoulder playfully. "Everybody hear the leading lady? Good! Whoever scores the first kill is paying dinner tonight!"

"Ow, my aching wallet!" Kevin said, and the marines laughed.

"Affirmative!" The pilot of dropship 1 said. "Were a half-minute away from the LZ, all units get ready to - my God." The massive Nobody cannon filled the Roger's sights. Blue motes of light gathered along the cannon, and they all flew up into the cannon's main barrel. It fired, and the massive, sizzling ball of blue plasma arced toward dropship 1.

It collided, and the dropship instantly blew up, it's flaming wreckage crashing into the ground. When dropship two flew past, the cannon, recharging, fired it's rapid-fire plasma turret. It missed most of the Roger, but hit one of the engines that hung underneath both of the dropship's wings. Dropship two began flaming, and drifted down toward the beach on the end of the town, rumbling violently, tossing and turning in mid-air.

"Everyone prepare for impact! This is gonna be ROUGH!" The pilot yelled, and the ground rushed up to meet them. The dropship collided with the sand, jerking forward and settling to a stop.

Inside the dropship, alarms sounded out, and dust filled the air. Are coughed a couple of times. "Status?!" She exclaimed, her marines all gathering their senses.

"Zilko's dead, Ma'am." A female Marine said.

"So are the pilots." Another Marine said, jerking his thumb toward the pilot's area, where the two pilots were slumped in their seats, blood all over the dropship's control panel.

"Make a note of their ID, and salvage their ammunition." Ares said, shaking off her splitting headache.

"Sergeant! With all due respect, I think it's time we hightailed outta here." Kevin said, walking up to her, looking out over the beach and nearby buildings.

"I concur! There'll be much better cover in the nearby buildings. You're up front, Tamara!" Ares declared.

In the buildings, a Samurai Nobody surveyed the crash site. He fought back a moment of revulsion - that these humans would dare defile their race with their barbaric weapons! He put down his binoculars and growled a command to his small unit: Two Dusks and a Dragoon.

He pointed at the force of human soldiers heading their way, and the two Dusks jumped down to fight them. The Dragoon, who was carrying an elongated, crossbow-like weapon, attempted to follow, but the Samurai stopped him and gestured to some human buildings above. The Dragoon emitted a hiss as a reply, and began stepping in their direction.

The human militia ran through in-between the wreckage, sweeping the empty space with their rifles. The five marines took cover behind a piece of twisted street asphalt. Tamara stepped forward, and narrowly avoided a beam of thin purple light, as it zoomed past her head. "Shit!" She gasped, then turned back to the other marines. "Dragoon sniper. It's on the left, I reckon 5th or 6th story." She breathed, gasping for air.

"Here." Kevin grunted, hefting his Sniper Rifle. "Let me give 'em my 'Welcome To Traverse Town' gift basket!" He aimed the sniper, up, zoomed in, and shot the Dragoon's head flawlessly. Purple blood spurted from it, and it's corpse fell from the building. It landed next to the two Dusks. One of them ran backwards, and the other one ran in the other direction, almost running into the marines.

Tamara was quick to act, stepping on it's neck and giving it a 3 shot burst in the head with her Submachine Gun. The humans began moving forward again.

The retreating Dusk tried to run past the Samurai, but the larger Nobody grabbed it by the neck, and tightened it's grip. The Dusk whined, trying to pry the Samurai's fingers off it's throat. Finally the Dusk stopped struggling, and the Samurai threw the disgraced corpse behind him. He turned on his invisibility mode, and jumped down to fight the humans.

The humans advanced further, until suddenly, a Plasma Sword appeared in mid-air. In front, Private Mendoza knew what to do, and held his rifle across his body. The plasma sword cut through his rifle, but didn't even touch his body. Then the Samurai extinguished his sword's plasma, and jumped away.

Mendoza grabbed up the Plasma Pistol dropped by the dead Dusk. "Crap..." Ares growled, the Marines now standing back-to-back, weapons out.

"Can anybody see a shimmer?" Mendoza growled, and suddenly a Hemoglobe Grenade flew down and landed on Kevin's helmet. Hemoglobe Grenades were much-hated and much-feared weapon in the Nobody's endless arsenal - they literally burned themselves into their opponent, making them irremovable. Kevin grunted, ripped off his helmet, and threw it into mid-air. It exploded a metre or so from the Samurai, who jumped down behind Private Cass, grabbed her, and held his plasma sword to the marine's neck.

The Samurai growled a warning. "Put some lead in him, guys!" Cass shouted, and the Samurai repeated the same warning, only roaring this time.

"Burn him down." Ares said, and Tamara detonated a flash dissolver, breaking the Samurai's shield. Kevin quickly followed up by darting toward the stunned Samurai and bashing it with the butt of his Sniper Rifle. It's skull caved in, and it dropped to the ground. Cass fell and was there on all fours, puffing.

"Squad of Dropship 2, this is Teague and Heather. You guys operational?" Teague's voice asked Ares.

"We're good Teague, but only just. Our pilots are out, and we lost a man." Ares said, as Kevin kicked the Samurai's corpse.

"Roger that, we're not far away, we'll intercept you. Also, your position is convenient. If you can move about 100 metres North-East, you'll reach what's left of a building. In there, there's a very important piece of AOTW equipment."

"Roger that Teague. We're on it." Ares said, and they began running. "You three! Move around and see what you can do! Kevin and I are going to find this equipment!" Ares yelled, as a Nobody fighter plane flew over, blasting a nearby wall with green fire.

Ares fired a few rounds at a Berserker which stalked the wreckage of the building. It carried a Spike Shooter - a Berserker designed weapon. Berserkers carried them like pistols, but to humans they were rifles. They looked like a big, brutish submachine gun with two blades coming the bottom. They were poorly made, which made them look all the more savage.

The Berserker felt it's hide being torn open and fired at Ares' position - white hot, 30 cm spikes dug into the wall where her head had been just before. Ares jumped out of hiding, firing Angel and Demon. The Berserker with the Spike Shooter dropped dead, but another one ran out, carrying a Shriek Grenade They were known as that because the noise the made before exploding was a high-pitched shriek. The grenades had sharp spikes which dug into their target, making them deadly against enemies taking cover. The Berserker threw the grenade into the wall where Kevin was fumbling for the equipment Teague had wanted them to get.

Ares quickly blocked her ears as she ran towards the grenade, the shrieking getting louder as the grenade came close to detonation. Ares grabbed it, wrenched it out of the wall, and threw it into mid-air. By some miracle, the Nobody fighter plane flew right into the soaring grenade and burst into flames, the wreckage crashing into the middle of the battlefield. Ares ran out, guns firing, killing the Berserker. Kevin ran over to her, carrying an equipment box. "We've got it! We've got the equipment!" He yelled over the radio.

"Affirmative, Kevin." Teague's voice said. "Sola, Riku, myself and two marines are heading toward your position in a jeep. Also, Xolas has a Dropship ready for pickup."

Kevin ran up to the other three marines: Cass, Tamara and Mendoza. "What's going on here?!" he asked them.

"We're nearly out of ammo, sir! We need to make a tactical retreat!" Tamara barked.

"We can't do that! Sola and Riku are only a minute away, we need to hold until then! I'll go this left wall, and kill their reinforcements!" Kevin shouted back. He ran around, Sniper Rifle in hand, and set up, aiming around a corner at three Berserkers who had just dropped out of a Nobody dropship.

One passed his sights, and he shot at the perfect time. The Berserker dropped like a stone, and orange blood decorated the wall behind it. The second one came through, and Kevin scored another flawless shot. The last one was decorated in red and black armour in places, particularly the helmet and shoulder pads. It carried a war hammer easily twice as tall as Kevin. It began running toward him.

"Lieutenant!" Tamara yelled, running toward him.

"TAMARA, NO!" Kevin yelled as the Berserker Chieftain brought his hammer against her stomach, sending her flying into the back wall, caving her skull in and her blood spattering the back wall with a sickly crack. The Chieftain grinned and smashed the corpse again.

Suddenly, a jeep pulled up, and two marines ran out. Edwards manned the turret which sat atop of the jeep's back. The heavy, two thousand rounds per minute chain gun shuddered the teeth in his mouth, as it peppered the wall with holes, missing the Chieftain completely. Then, Edwards' chest tore apart - a large metal spike pierced his heart, killing him instantly.

Three more Berserkers had jumped out of a dropship. And Xolas' Roger was just seconds away! It couldn't come close if that Nobody dropship was there! In desperation, Kevin flung open the Combat Pack, revealing inside a prototype weapon. He slung his Sniper Rifle and pulled up the weapon.

Suddenly, a Spike hit Mendoza in the stomach. Cass, the only one with medical training, ran up to him. "Hold still and be quiet!" She barked, pulling the spike out of his stomach. Mendoza cried out in pain as Cass sprayed medical biofoam into the wound.

Kevin looked through the scope of the weapon, and targeted the Nobody dropship. It registered the target, and it automatically aimed at the second engine.

A row of spikes hit the wall, one of them slicing through Paratz's arm, pinning him to the wall. He screamed, but fired back at the Berserker who had shot him, killing it. Cass ran over, and tugged at his arm. It wouldn't move, so she pulled an angle grinder out of her bag, and used it to cut through the spike. Paratz's left arm dropped, numb.

Kevin watched the weapon's charge go up rapidly. It hit 100, and a massive red laser beam shot out of the weapon, blasting the Nobody dropship's second engine and blowing it up, it crashing to the ground in a firestorm of orange, blue and green flames.

Seconds later, a Roger dropship dropped down. Three new marines ran out of it, and boarded Sola and Riku's jeep. Cass helped Mendoza and Paratz into the Roger, and Kevin and Ares soon followed, carrying the laser.

Cass ran around, calling out Tamara's name. Then, she saw it. A human corpse - Tamara's carcass, pounded and mutilated beyond recognition. The Roger's chain gun fired, gunning down the two other Berserkers with Spike Shooters. Cass' body started to tremble - not with fear, but with rage. She screamed in fury, and sure enough, the Chieftain with the Brutal Hammer ran out at her. She ran over to the Roger, and opened the weapons cache.

She pulled out a P89 Beast Rocket Launcher, and aimed it at the Berserker Chieftain. She fell back as the rocket flew out of the rocket launcher's tube, scoring a dead-on hit on the Berserker. Parts of its skin, armour and hammer flew everywhere. Cass began furiously crying as the Roger closed it's back door and took off toward the AOTW Meteor.

"Relax... Everything's going to be okay." Ares' soothing voice said. Cass nodded, but she didn't believe it. Tamara was gone. She no longer felt purpose in this stupid war - she was another expendable soldier in a war for survival. But she knew that this war would end in humanity's death.

The only thing keeping her going now was the hope that her friend, Admiral Heather, was fine. Kevin walked over to Cass as well. "Cass, we'll win. Mark my words. If it comes to it, I would gladly give my life to save yours."

-a-

Sola was first out, gun blazing. She shot down 3 Dusk Nobodies who were descending on Riku. She put away her Shotgun into its sheath, and summoned the Oblivion, beginning to slash away at the Nobody forces. A Dancer knocked her to the ground, and a Samurai Nobody raised its sword, ready to strike, until a quick 3-shot burst ripped into it's armour. The Samurai abandoned Sola and stepped over her, proceeding into the Marines. Suddenly it lunged, slashing one of the soldiers.

The others all opened fire, sending the Samurai onto the ground, writhing. One marine yelled "stupid shit!" and shot it on the ground, killing it. A bunch of marines ran forward, and one stayed back to help the wounded. Sola sat up, and watched madness take place.

"It's no good, sir." The medic informed. "That Samurai slashed him right up his stomach."

Riku walked over, a solemn look on his face. "Lieu... Lieutenant..." The marine breathed. "Get those bastards... For me, will ya?"

Riku nodded. "Does it hurt, Marine?" Riku asked, and the marine nodded, now bleeding from the mouth. Riku hung his head. "You know what I must do." he said to the medic, and he nodded slowly. "I would expect anyone else to do this for me..." He picked up Way To Dawn and jammed it into the soldier's chest. "…So I'll do you a favour."

Sola put her hand to her mouth in shock. She quickly got up and started running - she could see the insanity in Riku's eyes. Riku merely watched her run away, turned to the verandah and aimed his sniper rifle down at the Nobodies, opening fire.

-b-

The 'Roger' Class Dropship took off, carrying the wounded inside - one of which was a comatose Sora. Admiral Heather, on the ground, opened her eyes in terror when she heard a low whining noise - the noise of a Nobody dropship. She turned and saw the two purple ships hovering toward them. She saw the first one charge it's plasma cannon. "No way." Heather muttered with anger reverberating though her. She turned her massive Gunblade, Forward Unto Dawn, to the sky and fired.

The thousands of tiny orange, burning particles slammed into the Nobody dropship, sending it flaming, into the other one. They both exploded and fell to the ground as a pile of twisted wreckage. Meanwhile, the Roger sped away toward the fleet above. Heather breathed and ran to help out on the front. A group of marines ran into her position, carrying wounded. Another Roger came in, preparing to take them. The marines began quickly loading them in, Heather helping too. Suddenly, a Marine dropped dead, crystalline needles sticking out of his chest. "What the-" She said. She grimaced, took off the marine's identification tag, and handed it to the medic in the Roger. She stayed on the ground with the other marine. Suddenly he dropped dead too, the same crystal needles protruding from his chest.

"Go!" Heather shouted to the Roger dropship, which lifted and flew away. Just Heather stood there at the landing pad. "Okay, you can come out now... Braig." She said seemingly into thin air, and Xigbar appeared in midair.

"I haven't been called Braig in a really long time... But you've never held back with me, Heather. I only hope that in a time of war, you're no different." Xigbar grinned and a fresh row of crystalline needles lined up along his laser gun's ammunition lines. Heather turned and cocked the Forward Unto Dawn, and deep within, a softdrink-can sized shell clicked into the Gunblade's barrel. The two gunfighters fired at the same time, creating a colossal explosion.

Heather was first to recover. She jumped off the concrete surface and leapt skyward, firing another massive round. Xigbar jumped as the ground below was peppered with fiery pellets. The Freeshooter fired at Heather, who twisted in midair to avoid the shots. Xigbar fired at a large sign saying 'WELCOME TO TRAVERSE TOWN – PLACE OF PEACE!" and threw it at Heather. Heather hefted her Gunblade, twisted so that she was upside-down, and slashed. The massive blade on her Gunblade ground into the sign, slicing it clean in half.

Xigbar smiled and flew into an office building. Heather jumped in after him, and fired at him. Xigbar hid behind a pillar, and fired from behind it. Heather leapt out to another pillar, firing at Xigbar's exposed position. He disappeared, and appeared behind Heather. He pointed the gun to her head – she swiveled around and shot one of his guns. It melted behind the massive shell, and Xigbar swung his gun at her – her blade sliced through his second gun, causing the crystalline needles inside to start to fizz. She grabbed Xigbar by the head and threw him into his gun – the needles exploded.

Xigbar landed on the ground. He staggered to his knees, his face smoking and bleeding. Heather jumped up, stabbed him in the back, and fired, at point blank range, into him.

She walked away, not bothering to dispose of the Nobody's smouldering corpse.

-c-

Sola jumped out of the jeep's passenger seat. Riku was in the back seat, aiming his sniper rifle around the area. All the marines got out too. They were on a bridge, with a massive Nobody cruiser looming over the city. "By the looks of that," Riku said, "We haven't got much time. Let's do this. Sola, the marines and I are going forward to set the trap. Admiral Heather will be picking us up from here, so Sola - you hold this position." She nodded.

Sola, on the empty bridge, looked up at the cruiser. She saw, on the bottom of the ship, a red mote of light gathering there. Sola watched, mesmerized, as the ship's cannon moved. Then it fired.

A massive beam of pure plasma pummeled into the world, making the ground quake violently beneath her feet, the bridge to crack at one end, and feel a heat more intense than anything she'd ever felt wash over her. Streaks of light pulsed out of the ship towards her, and they landed a short way away from her with earth-shattering impacts. The bridge was on the verge of collapse. Sola staggered upright, rubbed her eyes, and saw that pods had stuck into the bridge. The pods flew open, revealing a type of Nobody that Sola had never seen before.

It's armour was incredibly large. The helmet was similar to Ancient Spartan style. They had massive breastplates, all from the waste down they were covered in bulky armour. Their arms were armoured until a colossal sword, protruded as a forearm for the right arm. The left one, rather than a sword, had a plasma cannon that looked it like it had enough power to destroy an 'Eagle' Reconnaissance Helicopter. However, it's stomach and neck appeared to be grey, mottled, unprotected skin. Sola charged one with the Kingdom Key, but it blocked with it's sword, and knocked her back. The beasts closed in on her, and she backed against the edge of the bridge. She looked backwards over the edge - a long fall, too long. Suddenly, a beast dropped dead. Sola blinked - she hadn't seen anything kill it.

"Entering solid form." Teague voice said. He stood there, a human flashing blue, in front of her. He slashed at the nearest one, and as it turned it's sword to block, he turned his sword computerized and it simply passed through the sword, then he turned it solid as it pierced the brute's armour. He swung his sword, the Nobody still pierced on it, around and threw the warrior into its comrades, who all fell off the bridge as a result. The last one charged at the A.I., and he pointed his rapier at it – a laser beam shot out of it and pierced it's armour. It roared in pain as the laser beam grew wider, expanding, melting the Nobody. Sola ran over and kicked it down off the bridge with the other ones. They heard the crashing noise as the lot of them exploded below.

"You should really not allow enemies to perform flanking maneuvers, Sola." Teague said, with a hint of a smile. "I might not always be there to cover you."

Sola put her hands on her hips. "Yeah, no annoying voices coming from my wrist – that would suck. Just shut up and get back in." Teague nodded and transferred himself back into her data transmitter.

-d-

The Roger pulled up to the bridge, and Sola hopped in. "This world is lost." Heather said miserably. "One of Hollow Bastion's two sister worlds, gone. But we're not through yet." The Roger flew into the belly of a human ship labeled on the Roger's control screen as the AOTW _Meteora_. Teague immediately jumped into the _Meteora_'s computer. "Teague, get that Nobody ship off our back, will you?" Heather asked the AI.

"Will do." he replied, hacking into the enemy ship's computer with his unrivaled hacking skills and tearing apart their controls - the colossal ship simply fell into Traverse Town and blew up.

The _Meteora_ flew out of the atmosphere, and Riku immediately walked over to the control room. He typed up a set of co-ordinates, and pressed detonate. Traverse Town exploded in a saturating envelope of blazing fire – the bomb taking out a fleet of a hundred Nobody ships with it.

Everyone was dumbstruck. Some gazed at the smoking area of space where there had once been a world, and a massive fleet of space battleships. Riku glanced around the crew, and simply turned and left the bridge. Cloud immediately regained himself. "Hold on, people." he said. "We're going to Agrabah."

-e-

AOTW Battleship _Meteora_, Sept. 19, the year 2 A.D., in orbit around Agrabah

"Did we lose them?" Cloud asked. The _Meteora_ had just finished being chased by Nobody ships at hypersonic speeds through space – it would have been comical if they hadn't lost three men to plasma fire. They had only barely time to enter Agrabah's orbit before AOTW ships began questioning them about the status of Traverse Town. He was quickly contacted by the Admiral in charge.

"Cloud!" Mickey said, dominating the screen in the _Meteora_'s command bridge. "What's Traverse Town's status? We haven't heard a thing since the order was issued for all unoccupied AOTW ships to go there."

"I'm sorry, Admiral… But there is no more Traverse Town." Cloud said to the humanoid mouse who was usually a king, but an Admiral in this time of war.

"Oh…" Mickey said, his face falling. "You mean Leon is…"

"I'm afraid so." Cloud said grimly. "We don't think they managed to follow us, though. And there is no way they managed to find the co-ordinates here, as long as everyone follows the Destiny protocol."

The Destiny protocol was a protocol stating that all ships need to purge all memory files if the ship is captured, and to remove and evacuate, or destroy, the ship's AI. That way, the Nobodies would have no way of finding any human worlds.

Unbeknownst to the humans, a tiny purple drone detached itself from the bottom hull of the _Meteora_ and ejected a stream of data at light speed toward the nearest Nobody fleet. The data stream contained the drone's co-ordinates – and thus, the location of the human world Agrabah.

-f-

The _Salamis_ was a repair and refit station, but one of the older ones – nothing like what you'd see at Hollow Bastion or Traverse Town – basically a 1 square kilometer plate of metal with people running around inside with all sorts of repairing apparatus and reload for every weapon in the AOTW's arsenal. Mickey's ship, the AOTW _Prime Fusion_, was hovering around the _Salamis_, as the _Meteora_ was docked to it, receiving a small change of armour, and even a few tech upgrades.

"I don't like this new guy. He's kind of pushy." Teague complained to Heather.

"Well, you're going to have to deal with Gus until the new AI is installed." Heather informed him, making the state-of-the-art AI groan.

"You mean this guy's here just to install another AI?" He asked, his arms dropping.

"HEY! YOU SHUT UP, STUPID!" The Installation AI said. Installation AIs carried wrenches, and Gus was waving his at Teague. "I AM TRYING TO WORK HERE! I CAN WORK FOR THREE TRILLION YEARS STRAIGHT!"

"Yeah, cool." Teague said, brushing his new trenchcoat of the dust that Gus had got on it. "Can you tell me how the German Luftwaffe should have attacked Britain in World War II in order to win?" Teague replied smartly, placing his hands on his hips when he finished, a superior smirk on his face.

"YES STUPID!" Gus yelled back at him. "ADOLF HITLER SHOULD HAVE ATTACKED BRITAIN WITH HIS NAVY, AND WHILE THE BRITISH ROYAL AIR FORCE WAS OCCUPIED, ATTACK THEM WITH GERMAN AIR FORCE!"

"Haha! Wrong! They should have – oh, wait." Teague said, knowing that Gus' answer was correct. "Damn." He hissed at no-one in particular.

"AI INSTALLATION COMPLETE!" Gus yelled. "GOODBYE, STUPIDS!" The crazy Russian AI faded from view, and was replaced with a slim girl wearing a jacket packed with bullets of all sorts over an olive drab shirt, with trousers on. She had a pistol holstered on one side of her legs, and a 15th century Rapier in her left hand. Her hair was black and flowed down to her back.

"Greetings. I am a Military-class AI, AOTW designation 1042468. Please enter a name for artificial intelligence program."

"Sexy!" Sora called out, causing the Marines aboard the bridge to snigger. Heather on the other hand, was not impressed. "Get Sora out of here. Sora, manage your testosterone." Sora pouted. "Aww, come on!" He said. "Have a little fun! It was just a joke!" His words didn't earn him any sympathy from Kairi or Sola, who dragged him away mercilessly.

"Name recorded as Sexy. Are you sure?" The AI asked. "No, name override." Heather said, rolling her eyes. "I'll think I'll call you… Gorgo, after the wife of King Leonidas of Sparta."

"Name recorded as Gorgo. Are you sure?" The AI asked again. "I'm sure. Name verify."

"This decision cannot be undone once made-"

"I'm sure. Gorgo."

The AI suddenly bypassed all the official stuff and immediately gained a personality. "Oh, at last. I hate all that technical set-up. Anyway, I'm the-" She was cut off by Teague.

"Wow, hello – what kind of website hotlink are you? 'Cause I'd love to click on you –" He was stopped when Gorgo punched him in the mouth.

"Come on, Teague." Heather said, her legs crossed over her chair as she watched the red-coloured teenage AI struggle to his feet. The olive drab-coloured AI just stood there with a stern expression looking in the opposite direction, and her arms folded. "Get ready for a hot transfer." The Admiral said, and Teague nodded, still clutching his face.

Heather tapped in a few buttons on the display, and Teague's data chip ejected from the terminal. Heather took it out and pocketed it, and no further than a second later, red lights and alarms went off inside the _Meteora_.

"WARNING: NOBODY SHIPS DETECTED IN THE SYSTEM. ALL SHIPS, MOVE TO BATTLE FORMATION OUTLINED BY ADMIRAL MICKEY. MOVE OUT, ALL SHIPS. AND GOOD LUCK."

Heather snapped to attention in the commander's chair. "Move us out, Kisaragi! And get Captain Strife up here – this is his battle." She left the commander's chair, and Cloud exited the elevator to the bridge. "Alright everyone, let's do this." Cloud said. "You must be the new AI. Your name?" He asked.

"It's Gorgo. We are in position." Gorgo replied.

Cloud grinned a battle grin. "I take it we're charging our main cannon?" He asked Tifa, his weapons officer.

"One step ahead, Captain." She said, looking back at him with a smile. "We're loaded and ready."

The Nobody Ships started firing. The human ships launched interceptor shots, the pieces of hollow plastic the size of a king-size bed sizzling away, blocking the plasma. "Spin the _Meteora_ around!" Came Admiral Mickey's voice over the radio.

"You heard the Admiral!" Cloud yelled. "Spin us around us get us a clear shot at those ships!"

"Aye aye, Captain!" Navigational Officer Yuffie said cheerfully.

"ALL SHIPS, FIRE!" Mickey yelled over the fleet's radio.

"Fire Main Burst!" Cloud cried. Lances of pure white energy shot through space, impacting against the Nobody ship's shield. It crackled and faded, but the ship itself stood untouched.

"Quickly, recharge cannon before they recharge their shield!" Cloud ordered to the bridge crew, Weapons Officer Tifa nodded and quickly began recharging. Cloud looked across the human fleet, and winced as a ship was hit by a plasma burst, melting half of the ship off in seconds, leaving it to fall simply into Agrabah's atmosphere, and burn up inside it. He looked in the other direction, and saw 4 Nobody ships sneaking around the great battle and toward the desert world, intent on destroying it without a fight. The ship shuddered as the Main Burst fired again, destroying the enemy ship. The crew cheered.

"Yuffie, make a break for those 4 ships - they're going to destroy Agrabah!" The whole bridge crew turned around.

"Sir... With all due respect, that's FOUR Nobody ships... We need at least 3 human ships to 1 Nobody ship to win!" Tifa said with widened eyes.

Cloud grew angrier. "We're going to reverse that, and then some. At least we'll alert the fleet to what's happening." As they approached the four ships, the Nobodies didn't start firing.

"What's going on?" Cloud wondered out loud - usually the Nobodies slaughtered first and mopped up later. Then, out of the darkness, came a colossal ship, at least three times the size of any human ship, with a giant 'VI' on it. Cloud swore out loud.

Inside the monstrosity of a ship, Zexion smiled. Right into the trap.

"Alright everyone!" Cloud yelled, quickly composing himself. "Fire our main burst at that ship. Launch half of our MSAM Missiles at the one behind us. Set out the two ULTIMA FIREBIRDS. And finally, get us away from that thing!" He said, pointing at the Organization ship.

"Done, Sir!" Tifa said, as two Nobody ships lost their shields.

"Now GO!" Cloud said, just as the Organization ship fired four plasma bursts at them – enough to melt any human ship. The _Meteora_ swung around, turning it's backside to Zexion's ship – and making the plasma follow it. _Meteora_ drifted between the two Nobody ships with shields still up, and all four blasts hit them, deactivating their shields and giving them barely any damage – it was their own weapon, after all.

"DETONATE!" Cloud yelled, and Tifa pressed a single button – making the ULTIMA FIREBIRDS explode in a shattering display of white light, which soon faded to purple. The bridge was blinded for a second, but as their vision returned, they saw it. All four Nobody ships had been obliterated, and the Organization ship had no shields left.

"Charge!" Cloud commanded, and the _Meteor_ charged straight at Zexion's ship, firing it's main cannon and the remainder of it's MSAM missiles at it. Explosions racked along it's hull. Zexion, in panic, commanded his Nobodies to turn their ship around and flee.

The bridge crew of the _Meteora_ cheered as the massive ship retreated. "Gorgo, add insult to injury." Cloud said happily.

"My pleasure." she replied, taking a fraction of a second to rip some co-ordinates from the big ship just as it zoomed out of range and view.

Just then, the bridge was filled with red light – 4 Nobody ships had fired their plasma lasers at Agrabah, and there was not a human ship left in sight. At least 16 Nobody ships, however, were darting towards the _Meteora_.

"Get us out of here!" Cloud panicked, and Tifa inputted the stolen co-ordinates. The human ship zoomed away, having failed it's battle, and the millions who lived below on Agrabah. All they could do was hope that these Nobody co-ordinates led to hope.

-g-

The AOTW _Meteora_ orbited around the world. "What the hell IS that?" Cloud asked no-one in particular. The castle was massive and yellow-green, with turrets sticking out in all directions. Teague appeared at the hologram stand.

"Seeing as we tore the co-ordinates from a Nobody Ship, I assume this is one of the two Nobody homeworlds: Castle Oblivion. This is the resting place of the Crystal of Darkness - something that could destroy all the Nobodies, however Sora himself locked it away with the New Organization. However, I'm reading the spectral analysis of something else: A Crystal of Light. How this has gone undetected before, I don't know. But, according to the spectral data, it has the ability to restore all the worlds that the Nobodies have destroyed if activated by a human… But the power to wipe out the entire human race if activated by a Nobody." Gorgo informed them.

"Alright, that's it then." Cloud said. "We're sending the marines and the Keybearers down to capture that Crystal of Light. Seeing as the Crystal of Darkness can restore the Nobody Worlds if activated by a Nobody, and destroy all the Nobodies if activated by a human, then it's it's vice-versa for the Light Crystal. If we could restore all our lost worlds, we could gain a considerable hand over the Nobodies." Cloud pondered. "And besides, we cannot let them activate it – it would mean straight extinction – no fight, no nothing - we'd all die. No more. That's not going to happen."

He was interrupted by Teague. "Warning!" Teague said. "Incoming message from a Nobody ship!" The viewscreen flickered and revealed one of the Behemoth Nobodies that Sola had fought. The Nobody was trying to speak in English, and it did so well, but sounded very unnatural.

"You are all rodents! Filthy primates, unfit to walk the worlds and the universe, cowering, clutching to life! Did you think for a second that because you have more worlds to run back to, that you can win? No! We will see to the end that your worlds, your people, will pay for ever disgracing the universe with your existence! You will pay, everything you hold dear shall be reduced to ash! And not even your key-wielding demons shall crawl from the pits of hell to blemish our pure existence!" And with that, the Nobody disappeared.

"Cocky bastards." Heather said, walking onto the bridge. "Just can't get enough of our cannons."


	3. Castle Oblivion

Warning for some language in this chapter! Then again, you should always look out for language in all of my stories.

This Chapter is remastered! A lot of the spacing, scripture, and errors have been fixed!

Glorious Advance

Chapter 3 - Castle Oblivion

"So we're doing this. Gorgo, let's give our Nobody friends a **warm** welcome. Alert all combat personnel… Units 7, 8 and 9 in particular." Cloud said, looking at Castle Oblivion.

Gorgo folded her arms and smirked. "One step ahead of you."

ALL PERSONNEL: REPORT TO YOUR BATTLE STATIONS. ALL MARINES, PREPARE FOR MOVEMENT TO THE SURFACE. WE ARE ABOVE ENEMY GROUND.

Countless marines sat in the prep room, checking their equipment and slamming in clips of ammunition into their rifles. Outside, combat jeeps and tanks were being loaded into massive 'Havoc' dropships.

"Alright, marines." Sergeant Ares said, pointing at a poorly drawn Castle Oblivion. "Whoever the hell did this, sucks at art. I need a new scribe and diagram drawer. If this was a maths test I would give you 0 for modeling and problem solving! But this is not one of those pieces of crap. This, my lovely marines, is the very definition of what we drop troopers call a rough landing. The enemy on the ground outnumbers us a paltry one hundred to one. Good odds for any human." This earned a few smiles from the Marines.

"Alright, whether you're in a dropship or a lifeboat, or coming down with me, here's the plan. As you know, the area around Castle Oblivion is just plains. Lush green plains as far as the eye can see. Well we're going to land right in front of the castle, enter the castle, wrench it out of Nobody hands, and finally, hold off until the fleet can arrive with re-enforcements. Am I clear, Marines?" She asked, and the Marines stood up.

"YES MA'AM SERGEANT MAJOR!" They chorused with unshakable pride.

"Mmm-mm. Damn right I am. Now move it out, double time! Since it's going to be a high-velocity atmospheric entry, I suggest you all shove a cork up your ass to stop it getting torn apart." Ares said, grinning evilly. The marines laughed again. Ares' face turned a grim, deadly serious.

"Funny thing is," She said, "I'm not kidding."

Sola and Riku were gearing up, Sola loaded her Shotgun full of shells, and Riku adjusted the sights on his sniper rifle. They heard a groan to their left, and rushed over to Sora, who had just woken up. His torso was covered in bandages, and his breathing was connected to a tube, inside an oxygen pump was rising and falling slowly. Riku pulled out a sheet of paper out of his pocket. It said _Sora Katamori, K.I.A. September 17th, 2 A.D., in combat against Nobody forces._ "Hey Sora!" He said to the boy, and Sora turned his head. Riku pointed at the sheet rapidly. "You're dead! Haha! You're dead!" Sora offered a small smile, then turned his attention to Sola.

He raised his hand in greeting, and she did so back. Sergeant Ares walked in. "So, Sola." She said, holstering Angel and Demon, her Glock .22's. You're coming with us, pod-way to the surface, aren't you?"

Sola nodded. "Yeah… It's a shame Xolas isn't with me…I could use her help."

"Fear not." Ares said, fingering her pistols. "A battle group of marines is going to take Sora to a secret area. Upon his recovery, they'll come help us guys out. All we have to do is hold inside Castle Oblivion. You ready?" Sola nodded, and Ares smiled.

"In the name of the Alliance of the Worlds," she said, "I, Sergeant-Major First Class, Ares, AOTW number 23384395, hereby promote Sola Katamori from the rank of Corporal to Sergeant First Class!" She tore off Sola's shoulder the symbol depicting a single sword – the symbol of a corporal – and replaced it with a symbol of a Keyblade, with a '1' (for first-class) on the empty space. "Now Sola, get into your pod, marine!"

Sola was strapped inside a claustrophobic's nightmare – a small metal pod barely tall enough to contain an adult human. "Get ready, Marines!" Ares said. "Drop in 3… 2… 1… DROP! DROP!" Sola pulled the lever in front of her, and she felt the pod plummet like a stone. Heat gathered at her feet, and the screen in front of her showed her fall – she had almost reached the atmosphere. Suddenly the pod jolted – the heat was unbearable – her heart felt as if it were about to explode!

"_Why the fuck am I doing this?_" She thought. "_I'm fucking 16, I should be worrying about grades, not falling toward a planet at a billion fucking Kilometres per hour for the safety of the fucking human race!_"

The pod jolted again, but the dropping was no longer there. She opened eyes that she didn't know she'd been keeping slammed shut, and looked at the screen. She was safely inside the atmosphere, a parachute deployed to give the shell a chance to cool off; her radar indicated that her marines were safe too. She breathed a sigh of relief again – until she felt the plummet once more, but lessened – the parachute had been ejected, and retros (rocket engines that fire in the opposite direction to slow something) fired.

Ares gripped the handle grips of the pod. Her pod, the command pod, had the vital signs and status of all her marines. All her regulars were normal – done this hundreds of times. Sola, however, had the heart rate of something running at 55 k's an hour. Her pod was fine, but she wasn't. The pod jolted, and her retros fired.

She heard a scream coming from Private Linda Addison. "Retro failure! I've lost parachute…" She gasped. Ares closed her eyes in sadness as she shut off Linda's screams from the rest of the group. It was the death that drop troopers feared most, and there was nothing they could do about it. Ares made her thoughts leave Private Addison, and focused on landing, only a few seconds away, according to the screen. She closed her eyes as the pod hit the ground with a thud. The light above her door turned green, and she wrenched the door release lever.

The door flew off, releasing steam from the inside of the stifling drop pod. She drew Angel and Demon, shooting down 3 Dusks with pinpoint-accuracy shots to the head. She saw other pods crash beside hers, the doors soon flying out and black-clad AOTW drop troopers charging out of their kiln-hot prisons to combat the Nobodies. Rifles rang out, from the 3-shot at a time Combat Rifle to the sputtering 15-rounds per second Attack Rifle. A Nobody tried to attack her from behind, but she twisted her arm and pulled the trigger. She grinned as the blue sparks of a dying Nobody filled her vision.

"Landing Zone secure, ma'am!" A drop trooper said. "Nothing moving!"

Ares nodded. "Ares to Admiral Heather. Landing zone is secure. Begin assault." A few seconds passed, then a small fleet of 'Forblaze' class fighter/bombers flew overhead. They passed over, and plasma fire rose to greet the Forblazes, sending one flaming and spiraling to the ground below. Small black shadows dropped from the belly of the Forblazes – and the Nobodies went up in flame. Moments later, the air was filled with Roger dropships. One of them drifted down, and stopped above them. It was carrying a large 'Rhinoceros' class tank.

Ares realized there was one soldier absent in her crew. She ran open to Sola's pod, and pressed the 'force open' button on it – Sola slumped into Ares' arms, in complete shock. Ares checked her vitals – she was breathing, and her pulse was slow. "Sola!" She said, shaking the girl. Sola's eyes widened massively, and suddenly she jerked out of Ares' arms and vomited onto the ground below. Instantly she flung herself around and began crying into Ares' shoulder.

"I'm such a burden!" She screamed. "I can't deal with something like that – How am I meant to protect the fucking human race?!" Ares' shoulder had grown hot and wet with Sola's tears.

"Listen, Sola." Ares said, looking into Sola's sapphire eyes. "You are three times any of the marines in my unit. You are 16. No-one your age should be made to go through something like that – you're the best someone's ever done on their first jump."

Sola smiled, looking toward the sky. The tank dropped from the Roger, and off it dropped Admiral Heather. "So far so good, Marines!" she said, addressing the group. " The 5th Division has a foothold, they're trying to secure the castle! All we need now is for you drop troopers to meet up with them. That's why I brought the tank. One of you guys or girls is gonna have to roll the brick all the way to the castle!"

"You sure it will work?" a Marine asked.

Heather smiled. "Usually command works in mysterious ways. But not today – this here is 66 tons of straight-up, high-explosive spewing DEE-VINE INTERVENTION! If God is love, then you can call me Cupid."

"But Admiral – up there they have a plasma artillery cannon – it could tear a dropship apart!" The same Marine argued. "And it'll do it to us too, if we don't get the hell out of here!" The marine tried to leave, but Heather stopped him.

"You hit, Marine?" She asked the marine.

"Uh… No Ma'am…" He replied.

Heather walked back to the tank. "Good. Listen up. When I joined the military in my original world, we didn't have any fancy schmancy tanks. We had sticks! Two sticks and a rock for each platoon – and we had to **share** the rock. Buck up soldier – you're one very lucky marine."

"What about that artillery cannon?" Ares asked. Heather looked toward the massive cannon looming over the horizon. "We've all fought 'em before in other worlds – they're very tough, but they're not unbeatable. They have weaknesses too. Just trust Sola with that tank."

"Ma'am… I'll need some help." Sola said to Heather.

"Of course," Heather said. "How could I forget?" She handed Sola a red data chip, and Sola inserted it into her wrist.

"Hey Sola." Teague said. "How can I be of assistance?"

-a-

"Rider on an inbound vector!" Teague told Sola from her wrist. Sola grinned and fired the tank's main cannon at a group of Nobodies – every single one of them being blown into nothingness. The cavalry rode forward – Nobody 'Riders'. They were basically a triangular-based pyramid about the size of an average car turned on it's side. They sped and fired tiny plasma shots from their cannons, which singed uselessly against the tank's plating. Sola fired the main cannon at one, and it erupted into flame and spiraled off. Another one ran into it, both of them exploding in a flash of electric plasma blue.

The artillery cannon loomed ahead. "DUCK!" Yelled Heather as the thing fired a long, thin stream of plasma at an overhead Forblaze – annihilating it. Even from about half a kilometer away, the following heat wave was incredibly intense – fiery air washed over them, and soon passed. "Go!" Heather commanded, and the group took off again. Another Forblaze passed over, attempting another futile attack – it fired a few missiles. Some of them exploded uselessly against the purple exterior of the cannon, but one of them hit a thick pipe connecting to the ground – and it exploded, sending blue plasma everywhere, and causing one of the large couplings which generated the plasma to fall off and spark. It crashed to the ground and burned there, and the humans watched as Dusks scurried to fix the damage.

"Now! While they're weak!" Ares said, and the platoon drove into the clearing. Samurais and Riders zoomed up to confront them, but the Marines shot down the Samurais, and Heather fired one mighty shot from Forward Unto Dawn and obliterated the Riders. Sola drove forward in her Rhinoceros Tank and shot at another one of the four pumps – but the tank shot didn't pierce the armour. Sola growled and switched gun settings – she pressed down on the firing button and pumped 2000 rounds a minute into the pipe using the gatling gun on the side of the tank's main cannon. The pipe caught fire, and the flames traveled up the cannon. "Teague, could you give us a hand in getting the job done?" Ares asked.

"Will do." Teague said. He sent a message to the nearest Nobody Capital Ship, in Nobody language. "_Humans have us pinned down, we need immediate assistance!_"

Almost immediately they received a response. "_Your request has been acknowledged, and salvation is coming! Death to the humans! Glory to Lord Xemnas!_" Hundreds of Nobody dropships zoomed down from above, hovered above the ground, and began to unload troops. Hundreds of Nobodies advanced toward the tank - they ripped open the cockpit and fired inside.

-b-

Another Roger landed, unloaded its troops, and flew off. Riku jumped into a group of charging Nobodies, slaying them with the Way To Dawn. He backflipped and drove his Keyblade into the chest of a Samurai. A number of Marines filed into the Castle. Riku pulled out his Sniper Rifle, swept the area, and ran into Castle Oblivion, shutting the enormous doors behind him. About 150 of the _Meteor_'s 500 marines were in the massive ground floor of Castle Oblivion. At the end were a number of Marines pushing on the door leading to the next room.

"Lieutenant, good to see you." Said Corporal Paratz, his arm in a splint. "We've secured the basement levels and ground floor, but the marines are trying to get that door open." Riku nodded, and ran over to them. He told them to stand back, and pointed Way To Dawn at the huge door, unlocking it. Marines gazed into the new room. Inside was just one person. Number IV, Vexen, stood in the hallway, massive shield at the ready. "Good to see you again, Riku…" The Chilly Academic said, a twisted smile on his face.

"It's been a while certainly, Vexen." Riku said.

"Well, you've definitely matured." Vexen said. "And somehow, you got rid of the darkness within yourself. But you still wield the same sword." Vexen pointed at the Way To Dawn.

"You're wrong, Vexen." Riku said. "This is no longer the Soul Eater – this is Dawn! The Way To Dawn!"

"Preposterous! You can call it a different name, but the weapon you wield will always remain a symbol of the darkness within you! We control the darkness! You can't win!" Vexen held his shield up as Riku charged at him. Vexen's shield clashed with the Keyblade, Causing tiny shards of ice to go flying with each consecutive hit. Vexen threw Riku back, and Riku readied his blade. Vexen teleported behind him and tried to cut Riku with the blades on his shield – but to no avail. Riku jumped off a wall to another wall, and pushed himself off it, flying towards Vexen. Vexen raised his shield, but Way To Dawn ground a quarter way through it, making it unmovable. Vexen flung Riku off, now weaponless. Vexen charged Riku, pinning the 17-year-old against the wall, Riku's throat threatened by the spikes edging closer to his face…

-c-

The tank's cockpit was empty. Nobodies looked around in shock. Moments before, this cumbersome human vehicle had been occupied. Above them, they saw a Nobody dropship fly away.

Inside said dropship was Heather, Ares, Sola and a group of 5 Marines. "Surprise." Heather said when they were far away enough, and Sola clicked the remote detonation on the explosives placed around the 4 pipes connecting to the artillery cannon. The Nobodies, the dropships, and the massive Capital Ship itself got a thirty-megaton plasma explosion. Nothing was left.

-d-

Riku kicked Vexen from underneath the shield, and lashed out at him. Vexen blocked Riku's stab with his shield, but once again, Way To Dawn got stuck in it. Vexen picked Riku up by the neck with his left hand, and held him high. Vexen smirked, tossed Riku in the air and kicked him – Riku hit the wall with a mighty thud. Vexen walked over to him, preparing for the final blow. Then, Riku charged Vexen. Vexen raised his shield to block, but felt his stomach erupt in pain. Number IV looked at his shield; The Way To Dawn was gone!

"I told you… This is no sword. This is a Keyblade." Riku said.

"Keyblade… Im…poss…ible…" Vexen breathed, then dropped and faded away. That made two Organization members down. Riku breathed a breath of relief. Instantly Marines ran in and swept the area for more hostiles.

One ran up to him. "Sir! Two more Organization members just came up! It's Larxene and Luxord! But Sola, Admiral Heather and Sergeant Major Ares just arrived, they're fighting them!" Riku nodded and ran towards the entrance.

Luxord summoned a card, and used it to force Heather out of the battle. When Heather was a certain distance away, Luxord and Larxene summoned up a shield, entrapping the four combatants inside. Sola darted at Larxene, who laughed and disappeared. Luxord surrounded Sola in cards – she couldn't move. Larxene reappeared in front of Sola and summoned her kunai. She held the knives parallel to Sola's face, pulled her fist back, and prepared to strike –

Only to be shot in the back by Ares. Larxene growled in fury and leapt at the Sergeant Major, only to feel Sola's Keyblade dig into her back. A splitting pain, then nothingness – as Sola wrenched Oblivion out of her back. "How dare… You!" Larxene spluttered, blood leaking from her mouth. Larxene kneeled, let out an ear-splitting scream, then vanished into nothingness.

Meanwhile, Ares had just emerged from a massive gunfight vs. razor-edged cards battle. Both were panting, and Ares was the worse for wear. She plucked a card from her arm, and pointed Demon at Luxord. "You gonna kill me, Ares?" Luxord asked.

Ares smirked. "Yeah, I was thinking about it. How many cards have you got left?"

Luxord took a quick look at his deck. "I'd say about a dozen cards. You?"

Ares checked Angel and Demon. "I've got… One round." Ares leapt and fired her last shot from Angel. Luxord brought up a card to defend himself with, but Ares gathered dark energy around her hand and threw Demon faster than her own bullet, and knocked the card out of the way. The single armour piercing bullet penetrated Luxord's skull – he dropped to his knees, then on the ground, his eyes wide open with shock. The shield fell.

Several marines ran into the room, congratulating Ares and Sola. At the forefront were Riku and Heather. Suddenly, however, it was all business. They needed to be able to hold here for days. They began working every thing out, from setting up defenses to treating the wounded. They even had a plan for their escape. Finally, at around 6 at night, they received two communications.

"Good to see you're all there." Captain Cloud Strife said. "The _Meteora_ is down behind the western mountains – anytime you guys have completed your mission, we can get out of here."

Sola nodded. "Give us three days to accomplish our mission. We have to find and safeguard the Crystal of Light somewhere in the castle, and then… We're gonna get out of here and blow the place with every Nobody here on it."

Cloud nodded. "Well, we got all the medical teams here. When Sora's back up, we can immediately have a second unit. We can have an effective resistance." Everyone at Castle Oblivion nodded. "Wait, Nobody patrol coming over – they think the ship crashed. We have to hide whenever they come in here, and shut down all the computers. I'll see you all later, people. And good luck." Cloud vanished from the screen.

"Dismissed, Marines!" Heather said to the cluster of about 150. Most of them skulked off, talking to their comrades or even in this time, telling jokes. Sola herself began to walk away, until she felt a hand grasp her shoulder. She spun around and saw the old wizard Merlin. He had been one of the ones who nearly didn't make it off the _Meteora_.

"You're Sora's sister, right?" He asked, a look of desperate hope on his face. "Oh please… You must let me fight with you in the upcoming battle! All the others denied my request… They say I am too old! But I know magic! Magic far beyond that of your ordinary Nobody! Raargh!" He yelled as he shot a Fire spell at the wall.

"An excellent fire." Sola said, genuinely impressed. But then, doubt crossed her mind. "But…" She handed him her shotgun. "Try and fire that Shotgun." Merlin raised the gun with difficulty, and tried to pull the trigger, but he couldn't. Sola bit her lip. "Marines need to be able to hold their weapon with sufficient strength, and fire against whatever is a threat to him or her, and his or her teammates. One marine fails to take his shot and our defense could be seriously compromised. I'm very sorry, Merlin… But not all of us can fight in this war."

"But I- Merlin started.

"You want a part in helping the Marines?" Sola asked, and he grunted back a "yes!" Sola looked at him. "Join Marines in finding wounded and bringing them back to camp. Help numb the pain of the wounded, use healing spells. But as for the actual battles… You can't fight with us." Sola said, and walked away.

Merlin whined, and then screamed, "Sola! I HATE YOU! Humans, the finest warriors in the universe! I hate you! I FUCKING HATE YOU ALL!" Merlin shrieked and ran, jumping through a window and plummeting to the ground below.

"_Poor Merlin…_" Sola thought, walking away. "_I hope he can rest in peace._"

"Ares, dispatch a quarter of our men to the eastern shift-wall. It's our only weak point." Heather said, after a scan of the castle revealed an unblockable shifting wall to the east that could leave them surrounded. Suddenly the ground beneath them began to quake. "Seismic activity! Brace yourselves!" Riku said, keeping his feet.

"That's not natural, Riku." Sola said to Riku, pointing to the thousands of white Dusks moving their way.

"Battle stations!" Heather grinned, ready.

Below on the ground, Merlin roused himself to consciousness. "Life… You are cruel… I still live!" He growled. Suddenly, an Organization member passed his position, flanked by two massive 'Behemoth' Nobodies. One of them pointed its plasma sword at Merlin's throat.

"Wait." The Organization Number V, Lexaeus, said. "Let's take this one… See what information we can wring from him…"

-- To Be Continued…

Woot! Hope you liked it. Next chapter, The Battle of Castle Oblivion!


	4. The Battle of Castle Oblivion

This Chapter is remastered! A lot of the spacing, scripture, and errors have been fixed!

Glorious Advance

Chapter 4 - The Battle of Castle Oblivion

Sola and her Marines all hid behind objects – whether they be fallen pillars, collapsed statues, or walls and corners, all they could do was wait. The ground shook beneath as the thousands of Dusks charged at their position. "This is where we make our stand!" Sola said. "REMEMBER, MARINES, WHEN THIS DAY IS OURS, IT SHALL REMAIN OURS FOREVERMORE!"

The Nobodies burst open Castle Oblivion's door, and every marine rose as one – and started firing. Nobodies burst, but kept streaming forward. One marine threw a grenade, obliterating quite a few of them. Riku killed five in one stroke of his Keyblade, and Sola quickly followed up by dropping a deployable cover. The small device folded out on the ground and made a massive shield that covered the doorway.

The Dusks quickly learned, and began shooting at the shield. The marines ran up to the shield, and set bombs there. They took cover again, detonators in hand. As soon as the shield broke, they pressed the detonators – flame roared over their heads, incinerating Nobodies and collapsing the doorway – crushing fifty Nobodies. "GO!" Sola yelled, and every soldier, pulled out their close combat bayonets and charged. The noise of exploding Nobodies filled the air, and Sola darted out with her Keyblade. Oblivion lashed out, cutting through legions. She charged a Berserker, killing it in a single blow. "Keep them out for just a little while longer, Marines!" She yelled to the brave hundreds fighting alongside her.

Heather fired a single shot, the thousands of searing tiny particles killed the Dusks trying to scramble through the doorway. Sola rolled an incendiary grenade across the ground. Of the thirty Dusks attempting to charge at them, nothing was left.

A Behemoth, massive and armed, stepped forward. Meanwhile, Riku had just a Berserker, but had gotten knocked down in the process. Sola extended her Keyblade to him. He grabbed it and lifted himself, but then looked past her head and saw the Behemoth charge it's cannon. He quickly grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her down.

The enormous plasma blast rocketed where Sola's head had been seconds ago. It washed heat over them, making the top of their hair stand on end. Riku was first up, charging the Behemoth. It charged another blast, but Riku jammed Way To Dawn into it's cannon, and when the Nobody fired, it blew it's own cannon up in a flash of green. Riku grabbed his Keyblade as it flew his way, and Sola charged forward to fight the Nobody. The Behemoth raised its Plasma Sword, and clashed with Sola's Oathkeeper. The Nobody swung again, and Sola jumped back to avoid the swing, then darted forward, thrusting Oathkeeper into the beast's arm and out the other side.

The Behemoth growled, and Sola watched in horror as it pulled Oathkeeper out of it's bleeding arm, And swung at the now-defenseless girl. Sola ducked and dodged, avoiding the blows. "SERGEANT!" Three marines yelled, firing at the beast. Distracted, it turned, and swung its sword – an enormous wave of plasma engulfed the three marines.

Riku also charged at the Behemoth, a Reflega surrounding him. The beast swung his blade into the Reflega, breaking it, but luckily the shield absorbed the blast, sending Riku flying backwards. Sola drew her Shotgun and fired into the beast's face. It just stood there, one of its eyes gone. Then it thrusted it's sword at her, and Sola moved to the side to dodge, and it kicked the girl to the ground. It thrusted it's sword at her, and she rolled to avoid it. It roared at her in frustration, foul saliva dripping from its mouth.

It trapped Sola between its enormous legs, and raised it's sword for one final strike. Sola jumped up, summoned Oblivion and sliced. She felt the Nobody's massive sword swing next to her. The Nobody was still. She jumped back, with Oblivion in hand – it was covered in blood. The Behemoth roared, and began to trudge toward Sola. Sola, panting heavily, readied Oblivion. Suddenly the beast stopped – a single blue line made it's way through the thing's neck, and the Oblivion's cut took effect – the Nobody's head fell off, and it's body collapsed. Sola watched, hair flowing in the wind of battle, as the Behemoth exploded, in a flurry of blue sparks.

"DROP TROOPERS! NOW!" Sola screamed, and on the roof, Ares and her squad of drop troopers assembled.

"Go!" Ares said to her men. "Let's show the Marines why we're the best of the best! GO!" The drop troopers jumped off the castle roof, one of them holding a large rocket launcher. The marine fired it into the centre of the thousands of charging Nobodies – but there was no explosion. All the drop troopers got out their rifles and began firing rapidly. The Nobodies looked up to see these Marines firing at them – and they began to retreat. The marine pressed his detonation button – and the 15 megaton Nuclear bomb that he had fired into the midst of the Nobodies detonated.

The Dusks, Samurais, Dragoons, Warriors, Behemoths and Berserkers all went up in a white and purple fireball which engulfed the whole area. The area in front of the castle was now barren. Nothing remained. The marines regrouped.

"Alright, Riku and I are going to look for the Crystal of Light." Sola said, and Riku nodded. She turned to her force of marines. "You guys stay with Heather and Ares, and defend." Sola and Riku ascended up the stairs, onto the next level.

-a-

The Second Day

Human eyes bore witness to the very scourge of many a fighting human army - several Behemoths charged at the marines. Ares stepped forward, aimed Angel at one of them, and shot it in the head. It kept charging, and raised its sword, Ares just stood there, watching it. It dropped and slid across the ground, coming to a halt at Ares' feet. She bent down, plucked the bullet out of the thing's skull and tossed it away, laughing.

When muscle failed, they turned to bombardment. Dusks, and Behemoths fired waves of plasma at them, whether they be great or small. The plasma ate away at what cover the marines took, and shrapnel flew everywhere, piercing one marine's leg. Heather started a runup, jumped off one of the pillars, and into the center of where the Nobodies stockpiled a large pyramid of plasma weapons. Heather unhooked a grenade from her belt, primed it, and shoved it into the deadly pile. She quickly ran and jumped out, and felt the billion-degree heats sear her back. The fire chased her as she dashed through the Nobody hordes and towards freedom. She burst through the ranks, turned, and watched as the Nobodies exploded and burned horribly, the electric green and blue of the plasma illuminating Heather, Ares and the Marines.

-b-

Sola and Riku dashed up another flight of steps, looking around constantly. They had encountered many, many traps so far – Riku had come close to losing his leg on a plasma mine. Suddenly Riku jumped up and tackled Sola to the ground – as the step where Sola had been seconds from landing on collapsed in to a floor of spikes. Sola nodded her thanks to Riku, and the two continued up the stairs.

Riku lay down, panting, his left arm covered in blood, the Way To Dawn dripping with the stuff. Sola opened the small backpack of supplies she carried with them. She pulled out a spray can of biofoam – a special foam sprayed into a wound that replicates living tissue and helps the real tissue re-grow faster. Riku winced as Sola sprayed it into the gaping wound that was caused by a piece of flying shrapnel digging what must have been 15 centimetres into his left arm. She sealed the wound with a bandage, and Riku struggled to his feet, then stumbled. "Okay, okay." Sola said, sitting Riku back down. There was a door was only a few metres away. She walked into a circular room, which had thorny vines everywhere – this must have been Marluxia's room, before Sora had killed him - and in the middle was a glowing yellow crystal about the size of a 550 mL bottle. She stepped toward it – and the floor underneath the crystal gave way, along with a considerable area around it – the closest Sola could get to the crystal was about 5 metres.

Sola looked behind her, and saw a vine. The thorns had rotted off, and she tugged on it – it was strong. It was connected to the wall, and Sola could tell that it had been there for years. She held on to the vine with one hand, and leaned out grab the Crystal of Light. "Gotcha!" Sola said in exhilaration as she closed her fingers around the rock. She felt the vine move – and tore off the wall! She screamed as she dropped into freefall, and then suddenly she stopped. She looked up, and Riku held the vine with both hands.

"You know…" Riku grunted, pulling Sola up. "Your brother never asked me for help either!" Sola smiled and held up the glowing gem. "The Crystal of Light is secure – we'd best get down and help out the Marines."

-c-

The inside of the tent was dimly lit, and smelt of damp earth. Merlin awoke – he was on a mattress laying on top of a rock. A Dusk Nobody entered, then left. He heard it speak a language he didn't know. It didn't return, but rather, a massive figure dressed in the black Organization XIII cloak entered – it was Lexaeus, the Silent Hero. "So, you're awake." He said. He had a voice as smooth as silk, and as deep as thunder. "I need to speak to you, human." It said, sitting down opposite Merlin.

"Your long, wise life has given you a raw deal – aging you as it has. The human military, as well, have been cruel to reject you merely for your aged physical weakness. But I am kind, I am wrathful, and I am forgiving. Everything you could ever want! Every luxury you have desire for after conquer the human worlds… I can grant you!"

Merlin's mind swam with the possibility. "Yes!" He rasped. "I want it all! Wealth! Land! Ships!"

Lexaeus grinned with satisfaction. "We have an agreement. Lead my Samurais around to the hidden wall that funnels out behind the human soldiers, and the wealth you acquire shall be unlimited! Unlike Sola who demanded that you take a stand for victory, I only need to you to stay seated." Lexaeus said.

-d-

Night fell upon Castle Oblivion. Riku told some stories – the one about The World That Never Was – a perfect choice. "A year and a half ago, Organization XIII thought they could take us – we got to their base, The World That Never Was. They were caught off guard – they stumbled, shocked to see 4 Keybearers striking them from different points! Even old Maleficent did her part – she and Pete fought the Heartless too! Ladies and Gentlemen, how can we lose to an enemy so fearful that they'd show their backs to **those two**?"

Much laughter rang out amongst the humans. It was short lived.

"HEATHER!" Ares said, running up to the Admiral. "We are defeated! Merlin was a traitor - he has led Lexaeus' Samurais to the hidden wall behind us! By tomorrow the Nobodies will surround us and take the castle – we'll be forced outside! This battle is over, Heather! We are lucky that Sola and Riku retrieved the crystal before now!"

Heather shook her head, shocked. Wide-eyed, she walked over to a rock and sat on it, and buried her head in her hands. "Admiral… I have an idea." Sola said, and Heather looked up. "Can someone get us a link to the Captain?" Sola asked, and Ares stood up.

"One of you Marines, establish a radio link to Cloud! Hurry!" She barked, and three Marines jumped to the task.

-e-

The Third Day

Dawn comes quickly for the human warriors. The Nobodies march, even as their backs are slashed by a slave-whip. Those in front attempt to retreat as their bodies split from human rifle fire. The Nobodies regroup. The Samurais come from behind, bursting open the hidden door and watching the humans scatter to outside the castle. Where hundreds of thousands more Nobodies wait. The humans, 150 strong, stood in a circle, eyeing all around them. Samurais, hungry for revenge, thirsty for human blood, closed in for the kill - pouring out of the castle. Sola stood at the front of the pack, glaring, eye-to-eye, at two people: Lexaeus, and a Nobody general that was addressing her.

"Sola… You have our deepest respect, and top onto that our greatest compliments, for they are yours! You have, against all odds, transmogrified a slaughter into a colossal victory. Despite your rock-hard stubbornness, Lexaeus has acknowledged your warriors' excellence. You would make a formidable ally to Organization XIII. Your fight for your worlds? Keep them, as there would a world for every single one of the troopers gathered here! You fight for humanity? You will be the wealthiest and most powerful Humans in the universe! You can even begin a human faction of the Nobody empire!" He roared. The troopers looked to each other, carrying mixed expression. The general, satisfied, turned to Sora, as her facial expression had not changed.

"You fight for yourself and your brother? You and your fellow Keybearers will be named Warlords of all the Nobodies, answerable only to Organization XIII, the true masters of the Final Journey! Sola, you will be **victorious** if you lay down your weapons now and accept Lexaeus' most gracious offer."

Suddenly a figure hobbled to the front of the Nobodies. It was in a familiar star-patterned cloak, with a long white beard. It was Merlin. "Surrender, Sola!" He said to Sola, his eyes filled with desperation. "Think of your marines! Think of the human race! I… I beg you!" He clenched his fists, hoping that Sola would not die in vain.

"We advise you to listen to your fellow man." The General said. "He has experienced first-hand the generosity of the Organization."

Sola looked to the sky. It had been over a year since she had entered the door and lapsed into unconsciousness, birthing Xolas. Now as then, it wasn't quite fear that surrounded her – just anticipation. Her cloak was stifling, and had become heavy with days of fighting, weighed down by dirt and mud and grime. She unstrapped the two belts holding it to her, and it fell to the ground. Her shotgun was out of ammo, but it was heavy – she dropped it, and it clanged against the ground. She fell to her knees, kneeling to the hordes of Nobodies in front of her. Lexaeus stood up, smiling with satisfaction.

"RIKU!" Sola screamed, and Riku ran out, jumped off Sola's back, and drove Way To Dawn into the General's chest.

"KILL THEM ALL!" Lexaeus screamed, and immediately the hordes charged. Sola picked up her cloak and shotgun again, and began running.

Sola's cloak was hot, it clouded her senses, and she must move far. Her shotgun was heavy, it threw her off balance – and her target is far away. "MERLIN! YOU WILL LIVE FOREVER – AS A TRAITOR!" She screamed, as she stabbed him through with Oblivion, impaling him so that the end of the Keyblade tore out through Merlin's back. She held Oblivion in one hand, summoned Oathkeeper, and slashed the wizard's face several times, then used the Kingdom Key to hit him off Oblivion's edge.

Every combatant stopped as they heard the roar of engines – and what must have been 30 Roger dropships flew over the area. "Fire, fire at will!" Cloud's voice went over the radio, and the Rogers started spewing out 104 mm bullets at the hordes at a rate of 1000 rounds a minute. 20 of the Rogers cleaned the area around the outnumbered human force, the other 10 continued to strafe the confused Nobodies.

The Rogers opened their troop carrying areas, and the marines inside ushered for the others to get in. Simultaneously, 150 marines all dashed into one of the 20 Roger dropships. After every last marine had been loaded, they took off. "All Rogers, on alert – active AAAA ahead!" said a voice over the radio. Electricity snapped through Sola's head – it was Sora! "Repeat: We have Active Anti-Aircraft Artillery ahead!" The Roger jolted – that one was close. The back of the dropship was open, and they could clearly see the dropship behind them. Ares was closest to the exposed back, then Sola.

Suddenly the Roger behind them half-exploded, and burst forward – smashing into the back of their dropship – but miraculously the ship didn't catch fire. Ares was thrown off her feet by the jot and as the Roger ascended, she slid down the dropship floor until she held on to the edge. Sola ran over to her, and tried to pull her up, but Ares raised a hand and pushed Sola back. "DON'T BE A FOOL!" She yelled over the roar of the engines and wind. "I'M GONE, DON'T GO WITH ME! FLY!" Ares let go, and fell. Sola watched, helplessly, as Ares disappeared from view.

The Roger dropships closed their backs, and broke through the atmosphere and into space. There must have been 30 Nobody ships. It would take a miracle to get through this. "Alright, everyone!" Heather said over the radio. "After the Captain flicks the detonation, every dropship has to hit their emergency thrusters at the **same time**, or else none of this will work! Now let's do this, people! What's our motto?"

At the same time, every human turned on their radio and shouted: "EVERYTHING INTO THE DARK!"

Inside the command Roger, Cloud smiled at the human's enthusiasm. He typed in a series of command keys, looked to Castle Oblivion, saluted, and watched as the AOTW _Meteora_ blossomed into a gargantuan fireball, a miniature sun. It expanded, swallowing every inch of the Nobody world and the Nobody fleet surrounding it, the incredible mass of nuclear fire eerily making no sound as it caused colossal devastation. A single tear ran down Cloud's face. Then, he saw something – a flash of purple.

"GO!" Heather yelled, and at the same time, every Roger dropship fired their emergency thrusters, propelling them forward as a single, impenetrable unit. Ahead of them, a white hole tore in space – that was a subspace portal, allowing for near-light speed travel. The Rogers flew into it, and it closed behind them. What would have been a weeks-long journey turned into one of a few hours. "Well done, marines." Heather said over the radio. "We'll be at Hollow Bastion in about five hours. Take a break – you all deserve one."

Sola went and sat down, reflecting upon her thoughts. She remembered the flash of purple. It seemed one Nobody ship had gotten away. At least now the Nobodies would know what horrors their own forces faced at 150 marines – what would they do when confronted with Hollow Bastion? And it's hundreds of thousands of defenders? Sola smiled. She, like the rest of the human race, wanted to know who would win, but right now, she only wanted to win one battle, and that was the battle her eyelids were fighting, to close.

That battle was over in seconds.

I hope that was enjoyable for all! Next chapter begins the main storyline, at Hollow Bastion!


	5. The Harbinger

This Chapter is remastered! A lot of the spacing, scripture, and errors have been fixed!

Glorious Advance

Chapter 5 – The Harbinger

"They had naught but one ship."

"One? Is that all?"

"Yes… It was named… The _Meteora_."

Lexaeus stood in front of the other three last members of Organization XIII: Xemnas, Saix and Xaldin. All around them were 4 different seating stands, each one had about 30 people sitting on them. They were dignified members of the Nobody races. One stand contained Samurai councilmen, another stand represented the Dusks, another the Berserkers and the last were the Dragoons. Heavily armed Behemoths stood guard around the dimly lit room.

"It should have suffered the same fate of all their other ships! Why had it not been obliterated?" Xaldin questioned angrily, banging his fist on his throne.

"It fled… As we began burning their world to the stars." Lexaeus said. "Zexion attempted to attack, but then had to retreat. It was only as I entered subspace to follow that I learned that Zexion was a traitor to us, and went to join the humans. I decided the Keybearers were more dangerous than the Cloaked Schemer, and so I prepared all the ships in my command to defeat them."

"But the matter remains that the humans were able to land on Castle Oblivion in the first place, after dodging all your ships – they then held in the castle and tainted it with their filth-ridden steps!" Xemnas said to him.

"Noble Superiors," Lexaeus said, "You cannot deny that once the humans killed Larxene and Luxord, I…" There was an uproar from the Nobodies around them, each yelling accusations.

"THERE SHALL BE ORDER! SILENCE!" Xaldin shouted.

"You were correct in discipline to focus your assaults on the castle." Xemnas said. "But this new Keybearer, this sister of Sora…"

"By the time I heard of what the humans planned to do... There was nothing I could do but watch and escape." Lexaeus said, the image of Castle Oblivion exploding flashing through his mind. There was another uproar, and Xemnas raised a hand for quiet – silence fell instantly.

"Lexaeus, you have always been one of our most capable warriors." Xemnas said to Lexaeus. "You have always led your soldiers with discipline and excellence. But your failure in protecting it, doubled by your cowardice of fleeing… Are unparalleled in the history of our Organization! You are more a coward than Roxas was!"

"NAY, HE WAS NO COWARD – HE WAS A HERETIC, NO LESS!" One of the Dragoon Councilmen roared out, and what followed were more shouts and accusations. Saix raised a hand for silence, and then leaned over to Xemnas.

"Superior, this has gone on far too long – Unleash your judgment on this failure! The council is most impatient!" Saix said, and Xemnas nodded.

"The court shall end here. You are to be branded with the Burn of Failure, and then confined, while we decide your punishment." Xemnas declared, and two Behemoths walked over to the Silent Hero. Both aimed their plasma weapons at him as they escorted him to his cell. "The last age, that of Salvation, is nearing its end." Xemnas said to the leaving Number V. "But when the Final Journey at last comes, the burden your failure has placed upon you shall curse your feet with sluggishness… And you shall be left behind with all who are unworthy."

A group of Berserkers watched the disgraced Lexaeus leave. Behind them was a Behemoth, it's arms wrapped around a human. Out of the council walked Saix. "What is it's name?" he asked, and the Berserkers bowed low.

"Aries… Areas… It matters not. They are all vermin." A Berserker Chieftain growled.

Saix looked into Ares' eyes. "Haha… Let us take her to Hollow Bastion. She can be executed as part of the victory ceremony." Ares tensed up, and struggled against her captor. "Do you hear me, human?" Saix said to her. "You will be last human alive."

"Yeah… Good luck…" Are said, grinning even though her mouth was bloodstained with torture. "You go there… You'll never win. We've got something you've never before… Dreamt before… You can't win."

Saix held his Claymore to her face. "You'll have to watch as we tear your last hope to pieces. Be afraid, for a fiery end awaits you and your entire race." And with that, Ares was dragged away by the Behemoth.

-a-

September 20, 1031 local time, Hollow Bastion, on board the AOTW _Skies of the Land and Ocean_.

Captain Strife, Riku, and Sola stood before Admiral Heather and Admiral Leon. "Leon!" Sola said. "How did you make it out of Traverse Town in one piece?"

Leon smiled. "Sorry Sola, it's classified." The doors opened, and walked through Kairi, Roxas, Namine and Xolas. Leon nodded to acknowledge their presence, then continued.

"Captain Cloud Strife, for your act of using sacrifice to neutralize a threat which could have destroyed an entire world, we promote you to the status of First-Class Admiral. You're one of the Navy's best."

"WE HAVE NEVER SEEN ANY GREATER HERESY!" Saix shouted to the enormous crowd of Nobodies, as Lexaeus was dragged forward.

"Riku, you admiration in never giving up and standing by Sola throughout the battle earns you the Star of Gallantry. Wear this proudly, and let it be an example to those who fight for our cause."

"LET HIM BE AN EXAMPLE TO ALL THOSE WHO WOULD BREAK OUR UNITY WITH THEIR INCOMPETENCE!" Xaldin bellowed, as a rod with an end shaped in the Nobody symbol, with an 'F' on the inside of the symbol, was heated to white-hot.

"Sola, your acts of incredible bravery and singular daring earn you the Victoria Cross, humanity's greatest military honour. Now, with the Crystal of Light, we can restore our worlds after this war is over. The billions of innocents who have died will have their lives reawakened, and humanity owes it all to you."

"Torture hasn't seen a spectator crowd this big since the formation." Saix said to Lexaeus.

"The ones who were tortured at the formation begged for mercy." Lexaeus said. "I will not be so weak."

Saix picked up the rod – it was the Nobody Burn of Failure, the punishment for the greatest treason. "I will enjoy giving the crowd what they came here to see." Saix growled. Two beams of laser shot from the ceiling and connected to Lexaeus' wrists. His arms were forced upwards. Two Berserkers grabbed hold of Lexaeus' cloak, and tore it so that the Silent Hero's chest was exposed.

Saix, relishing every moment, picked up the rod of shame, and with, a slight pause, pressed it into Lexaeus' chest. Number V's eyes widened with shock, his body tensed up, and then he felt it. The limitless pain of the rod burning, destroying his flesh. Lexaeus roared in fury and immense pain.

Sora ran to Kairi and embraced her, his eyes watering in unison with hers. For a moment, everyone watched, as they held each other. Then Leon walked over and pried Sora off Kairi. "Sora, please respect your superiors." Leon said. Sora gave him a confused look, and Leon gestured to the two gold stars on Kairi's shoulder – the insignia of a Captain.

"You're speaking to Captain Kairi, Captain of the AOTW _Peacemaker_." Leon said, and Kairi blushed and looked away, as Sora looked at her in a mix of admiration and love.

"Permission to speak freely, Captain?" Sora asked.

"Granted."

"I love you." Sora said, and ran in embracing her and lifting her up. The two broke their faces apart. "Oh, I'm sorry," Sora said, "I guess I should have asked permission to act freely."

Kairi giggled. "You don't need to. You never will need to." Sora laughed as well, and the two teens kissed.

Heather, Leon, Cloud, Sola, Riku, Namine, Roxas Xolas, and several marines just watched, open mouthed. Finally Riku, always the one tasked with stopping the sexual tension between Sora and Kairi walked in and broke up the pair. They both pouted at the older.

"At least go back to one of you two's rooms…" Heather said.

"Okay." Kairi said, and Sora shrugged. They walked off, arms wrapped around each other's waists.

"Wait… That means they'll be alone…" Leon wondered out loud. "Oh crap!" Heather swore, and got Roxas and Namine to run after the two.

Leon turned to Cloud. "Mate, you've done humanity a far greater service than just blowing up Nobody Ships. Morale's been rock-bottom here for ages, and your victory has proven they **can** be beaten. It's time the people had a morale boost. The humans aren't extinct yet, and we've gotta show them that."

Cloud nodded. "Let's go. Xolas, I believe Lixnus wanted you downstairs. Heather, Sola, go up there and face your success. The media, I hear, are dying for a glimpse of the two ladies who won the battle of Castle Oblivion. Go give 'em what they want."

Heather was dressed in her formal dress gear – a white-as-snow jumpsuit with gold lining the edges, and, black leather shoes. Sola, on the other hand, wore her usual outfit, completely non-uniform. The two walked into the elevator, which had a spectacular view of Hollow Bastion.

"Hollow Bastion…" Heather said. "Haven't seen it in ages. When the AOTW was formed, the Radiant Garden Defence Sphere was all about cost, and politics. Now look! Someone finally snapped those Politics into their sense, because in orbit around that world is a cluster of 500 synchronized orbital main burst cannons. Those guns could put a round straight through a Nobody capital ship and went the one behind it reeling."

"I don't see anything." Sola said, looking out.

"Of course not! Those cannons are completely invisible to the naked eye, and invisible to radar, as well. They can only be seen by heat signatures. They're designed to cool extremely fast though – the enemy won't be able to see them for more than 3 seconds."

"Whoa…" Sola gasped as Heather pressed a button on the elevator, the view turned a dark blue, but peppered across the view, just above the atmosphere, were pinpricks of heat. Heather turned the heat-vision off as the elevator ground to a halt. The doors opened, and the two stepped out into a world of blinding flashes.

"I thought you said that there would be no cameras at this thing." Sola said coolly, watching the media take countless snapshots. Also around were marines, clapping and cheering.

"And you told me you were gonna wear something nice for once!" Heather said back to her. "The people need heroes, Sola – to give 'em hope. Hope than we can survive."

Teague appeared on the pedestal next to them. "You look nice." He said.

"Thanks!" Said Sola and Heather, in perfect unison, then looked at each other.

"Would the media please move aside?" A gruff voice rang out. Sola recognized that voice – this must have been the gruff man that she heard that Traverse Town.

The man was about 6 foot 2, had black-brown hair that was graying at the base, and a face that was twisted on one side – the skin seemed to form a crater at a single point on his cheek.

"Admiral on deck!" A Marine barked, and everyone snapped a salute, even Heather. Sola noted that was impressive.

The Admiral nodded. "At ease." He simply said, and everyone's hands dropped. He walked over to Sola, towering over her.

"So this is the Sola I've been hearing about. I am Admiral Anissem." He said, shaking her hand. "I wanted to meet the heroine of Castle Oblivion just once." Sola tried to be polite, but couldn't help her eyes wandering to his partly-demented face. She gulped as the Admiral's eyes narrowed. "Battle of Twilight Town – A Nobody bastard got a lucky shot with a grenade, blew up the wall next to me. Anyway, it was good to meet you, Sola." And with that, he walked off.

"That was Anissem. He may be a little on the harsh and straightforward side, but he's the most senior Admiral in the fleet, as well as one of the best. He's had 3 ships, each one credited with over 20 kills."

Sola admired the old admiral. Then, she realized something. "Battle of Twilight Town?" She asked, and Heather's face fell.

"Oh yes…" She said. "You'd better follow me."

"By 1200 The Nobodies had eliminated three-quarters of the defending fleet, and the number of marines left on the ground was down to about 120. At 1230 Sephiroth threw in one final strike, while Kairi's ship evacuated the marines and left the system." Heather explained.

Sola watched the hologram of Sephiroth's ship charging into a massive Nobody force. It fired its main burst cannons, blowing up a Nobody ship with each shot. It was pumped full of plasma, but it still kept going until it took one shot too many, and exploded in a flash of orange. The hologram faded away. "We've lost Twilight Town, with every life on it. Hollow Bastion is humanity's last world. We lose this, we will be an extinct page in history – literally none of us left."

-b-

Two Berserkers dragged the limp and pained Lexaeus down a dimly lit hall, Saix leading the way. Lining the wall were prisons cells. One of the Berserkers grunted with annoyance. "Hrrgh… When are we going to arrive at this punishment?" It complained. "Why not just toss him in one of the other cells and be done with it?" He gestured to a cell where a number of ravenous Dragoons clawed at the passing meal.

"I couldn't agree more!" The other remarked. "My belly is aching for a feast, yet we are, missing out on our seared pig to heft around this failure!" He roared, and the first one grunted in agreement.

"Quiet!" Saix said in front. 'You two whimper like Dusks fresh from being human. And no, this is no common criminal… The Organization have something special in store for him." The door opened, and they entered a large, oval room.

"Fellow members of the Organization… My men and I present the failure to you." Saix said, bowing low.

"Thank you, and so we bid you goodbye now, Saix." Xemnas said, waving an arm.

"But I thought-" Saix began, but Xemnas cut him off.

"And have your Berserkers depart with you."

Saix bowed low again, gestured for the Berserkers to leave, and shot Lexaeus a dirty look. His Berserkers glared at him as they left.

"The council voted for you to be cut continuously and left to bleed on public display until your inevitable death. But when push comes to shove, the only voice that matters in the council's affairs is my own. Xemnas said.

"Physical death will be fine company for the death inside of me." Lexaeus growled, ashamed of himself. He wore a modified cloak which was neat, but showed his chest, and the Nobody Burn of Failure branded onto it.

"You are correct." Xemnas said, then moved on. "I trust you know your history, Lexaeus? And thus, where we are right now?"

"The Tomb… Of the Harbingers…" Lexaeus said, looking around at the grey circles that decorated the walls and ceiling – each and every circle had a name and date on it.

"Indeed…" Xemnas said thoughtfully, waving his arm around the room. "In every one of the pods in this morgue rests one of the revered templars of the Final Journey. Every Harbinger, from first to last… Each one crowned and sent into battle in times in times of need, confusion, and extraordinary crisis."

"The taming of the Behemoths! Marluxia and Larxene's treason! The victory over Ansem the Wise! Were it not for the revered Harbingers, the unity of the Nobodies would long have shattered by now!" Xaldin barked.

"We, as the Organization, were barely worthy to stand in their presence. I, branded and ashamed, am not fit to be in their presence, even on my knees I am no better than a common human." Lexaeus said.

"Castle Oblivion's obliteration was your failure, and you rightly received the punishment for such defeat." Xemnas said. "But the council was… Overpatriotic. **We** know you are no heretic, as compared to what we should be fighting together. Behold the true faces of heresy, ones who would threaten our faith, and incite rebellion within our armies."

He activated a hologram, and it showed Roxas, Axel, Demyx and Zexion. Roxas was speaking. _"The Organization is lying to us all! Activating the Crystals and bringing forth 'The Final Journey' would do naught but cause unparalleled destruction! Open your eyes, my brothers! Do not be blind any longer! Join us in a united front against Xemnas' lies for the freedom of the entire universe! The Final Journey… Is a plan to mass-murder us all!"_

Xemnas switched off the hologram. "We know that commanding ships will be forevermore beyond your rank… But become the Harbinger, and we will give you control of the Samurais… And unleash your might against the humans and heretics with no less than our highest blessings!"

Lexaeus considered. "What about the council? They ordered my death sentence, and would surely revolt if they found out you took over their decision. They will want my corpse."

"The missions you must fight through as the Harbinger are the ones which our elite units cannot take! The most defended positions, the most skilled enemy soldiers! The role of Harbinger is tantamount to suicide! No Harbinger has lived to see his body age, and you shall be no different. The council will have their corpse." Xaldin replied.

Lexaeus watched as a pod rose from the floor. The door of it opened, and inside lay a set of highly decorated silver armour – Ornate thigh pads, a few plates for the stomach, a triangle shaped breastplate, and a helmet with a spike hanging down from the top, and two other spikes that went sideways, protecting the wearer's mouth. Two arch-like armour pieces held the breastplate and stomach armour together by arching over the shoulders. Finally, silver chain mail strapped to the arms and wrists.

The Silent Hero got to his feet, stepped over the pod, took the helmet, and placed on his head.

"What would you have your Harbinger do?" He asked.

-c-

"What is it, Teague?" Leon asked the A.I., upon hearing him say "Another one!"

"Another whisper, Sir. Just outside... Wait… Sir! It's begun! Thirty-two Nobody capital ships, sitting just outside the range of the orbital guns."

"This is Admiral Anissem – we are engaging the enemy!" He had always been quick to the fight. The screen showed a diagram of Anissem's fleet moving toward the enemy ships - they looked outside at the view – Explosions of blue and orange outside started flashing throughout space. "All main burst cannons, fire!" Yelled Leon over the radio.

Lines of white-hot energy rocketed through space, seemingly out of nowhere. Nobody ships exploded, caught fire, and simply crumpled under the assault. When they were all destroyed, humans all over Hollow Bastion cheered.

"We lost one ship." Anissem said. "But apart from that, we had no casualties."

"Sir! New contacts!" Navigational officer Yuffie said, and what must have been 40 more Nobody ships slipped in.

"You heard him, now open up!" Heather said, and once again, Nobody ships feel under the immense firepower, but this time, several small Nobody dropships flew out from the ships and headed straight toward Hollow Bastion, flying through clusters of human defenses.

"Mobilize the marines! They must be going to ground, to try and take our orbital guns offline!" Sure enough, Sora immediately reported in.

"We'll be defending at different points. Riku and Xolas have the city, I have the Cavern of Remembrance, and Roxas has the area around the Dark Depths."

"Roger that!" Said Demyx. "Axel, Zexion and myself are taking the Originals, Lixnus, Xeonide and Demetrix to the Cavern of Remembrance to keep them safe."

"Hit the door." Sora said, and the hangar door of the _Skies of the Land and Ocean_ flew open, and the dropships packed with marines plummeted to the ground below.

-d-

A loaded Nobody dropship flew past the human battle cluster. Inside, Xaldin and the Harbinger were going to the Cavern of Remembrance.

"When we lost our hearts to the nothingness and became Nobodies, we took an oath of duty!" Xaldin yelled to the Samurais, Dragoon and Dusks inside the dropship.

"ALL AGAINST OUR ENEMIES, ALL UNTIL THE LAST HOUR!" They chorused.

"On the cursed hearts of our fellow Nobodies, on the blood of our thirteen lords, we swore to uphold our advance toward the Final Journey!"

"UNTIL DEATH OR SALVATION TAKE US IN!"

"Those who break this oath of duty and defile what we worship are no more than filthy heretics. Worthy of neither sympathy nor mercy!"

"WE SHALL GRIND THEM INTO DUST!"

"And continue our Glorious Advance to salvation!" Xaldin finished, and walked over to Lexaeus. "That is a perfect fit on you, Silent Hero." He said, then gestured to the spot where the Brand of Failure was. "But it will be hard-pressed to hide that mark."

"I will never be able to hide it." Lexaeus said. Xaldin gestured around to the Nobodies. "You are the Harbinger. But these… Are my Nobodies. Their lives matter to me. Yours, even as assassin of the Organization, does not."

"That makes two of us." Lexaeus was quick to reply. Xaldin gave him a respectful nod, then turned back to his troops.

"Troops, our mission is to go to the Cavern of Remembrance and receive two things! First we must find and retrieve the Crystal of Chaos – this will be entry into the Final Journey! And Second, we must retrieve the Crystal of Darkness, and bring it back to Xemnas! And we shall burn any human that gets in our way!"

"AND WIPE THEM AS EXCREMENT FROM OUR FEET!" The Nobodies roared.

The Nobody dropship hovered above the ground, and activated it's gravity lift. The Nobodies dropped out of it. Last one out was Lexaeus. Xaldin walked up to him. "We are the sword hand of the Organization, Lexaeus – raining death upon our foes! But you, as the Harbinger…" The Whirlwind Lancer handed his tomahawk to him. "Are the blade itself!"

-e-

Sola breathed a sigh of relief. The Nobody patrol hadn't spotted her. When the others had gone for the surface, she had stolen a dropship and crashed into a Nobody ship, and had been since been on the run, having been forced to use stealth. He plucked Gorgo's chip out of her wrist and put it into the computer terminal. "I've found some information. Ares… She's alive! She's captured on the Nobody ship _Pathway To Darkness_… That's Xemnas' personal ship!"

Sola nodded. "I'll tell the fleet."

"Also, there's some mission data here… There are a group of Nobodies trying to get to something. A Crystal of Chaos, something they believe will put them on 'The Final Journey'." Gorgo said, trying to interpret the data correctly.

"I'll bet that Crystal doesn't do a thing but destroy the universe or something." Sola said, and Gorgo nodded.

"I'm going to use my Carbon Copy function to make a cybernetic copy of the Crystal of Chaos from the data gathered here. I'll keep half, and send half to Teague. But right now, you've got to get down there and stop them from getting that crystal." Sola nodded, and reached to the pedestal to withdraw Gorgo's chip.

"No." She said, stopping Sola. "I don't want to risk losing the connection to the Crystal. I have to stay here and finish the copy. But you've got no time." She said, and Sola's eyes widened.

Teague appeared at Sola's wrist. "After we're done with this Crystal…" Teague started, but Gorgo held up a hand to stop him.

"**Never** promise a girl that you'll return… If you know you can't. Go."

Sola turned and walked away, trying to ignore Teague's sobs.

Sola contacted Heather. "Alright, I'm coming down to the surface. Tell every available reinforcement to move to the Cavern of Remembrance – that's where the Nobodies are striking."

"Roger that. Have you got an escape plan?" Heather asked her.

"Yeah, I got one." Sola said, activating a Reflega spell. She pressed a button on the Nobody ship's wall, and the hangar opened, revealing nothing but open space and the enormous battle raging. Sola ran forward, looked toward the surface, two Kilometres away…

And jumped.

To Be Continued!


	6. Survival Dangles On A String

Glorious Advance

Chapter 6 – Survival Dangles on a String

Sola was falling, falling… Teague's voice echoed through her head.

"_They let me choose, you know? I don't think I ever told you that._

_They showed me all of you. They told me to choose who I wanted to be my protector. In many ways, the other Keybearers were better. Like Riku you were strong, but he was stronger. You were swift in your duty, but you were left in the dust by Kairi. You shared your brother's determination, his bravery… Only Sora's bravery left you overshadowed. But you had something they could never have. Something no-one saw in you – but I saw it, and chose you for it. Take a wild guess what it is."_

"_I'm sorry, Teague. I don't know." _Sola thought, only to hear the last sentence before passing out.

"_Chance. It was always on your side."_

The ground rushed up to meet her, her Reflega remaining tight around her form. Fire surrounded her like a comet, and faster than a meteor, she crashed at incredible speeds into a swamp. The damp air extinguished the fires, cooling the heated area.

"_Perhaps I was wrong…"_

-a-

A group of marines sat around Sola, who was as still as wood. She was sprawled across the bank of a dried-out water basin, one of her arms stiff in front of her chest, the other was by her side, but hanging in the air, somehow not falling. Her eyes, usually a perfect sky blue, were closed.

"Well, isn't this great." A marine said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Damn… How far did she fall?" another asked.

"Three or four Kilometres, maybe more." A Corporal said.

"Keep focused! Have you forgotten that humanity is on the brink of extinction?" Admiral Heather said, turning around. The marines clustered around the girl. "Well, Paratz?" She asked one of the marines.

"She's not breathing…The Reflega spell could have taken the impact and literally absorbed into her body, keeping her skin and body frozen in place… But I don't know, Admiral." The marine took out a small rod – a standard issue magic negating rod - and pressed it to Sola's stomach. The Reflega spell dissolved, and her hands dropped down, her body going limp. A marine ejected Teague's chip from her data reader. Heather leaned in to Sola's face, shook her head, and turned to the marines.

"Radio for pick-up, and arrange for a funeral service. We're not gonna leave her for the Nobodies to parade around." Heather said, and suddenly a hand gripped her wrist.

"Yeah…" Sola said, rising up. "Don't even think about it." Sola stretched to her full height.

"You… Insane vixen!" Heather said. "Why did you have to jump? Why do you insist on jumping? One day in the near future you are gonna land on something a bit tougher than a nice, mushy forest… And I'm not signing up for **that** kind of pick-up! I never enjoyed doing one thousand or more piece puzzles in the first place."

Sola said nothing, but ejected Gorgo's empty chip from her wrist. "She's missing, Sola… Where is Gorgo?" Heather asked.

"She stayed behind." Sola said, re-inserting the chip. Suddenly, the air behind Heather distorted – an invisible Nobody! She pushed Heather out of the way, grabbed one of the marine's pistols, and forced the pistol into the bottom of her adversary's chin.

"SOLA, NO!" Heather yelled, as Sola began to pull the trigger in her grasp. "Zexion's our spy!"

Sola wasn't convinced. "At Agrabah, We came under fire from your capital ship… You tried to destroy the _Meteora_ and kill us all!"

Zexion shook his head. "I've been your spy in this war, and I happen to have intelligence information." He said, and Sola removed the pistol from the Cloaked Schemer's chin.

"Now, now, you two." Heather said. "We'd prefer to worry about how we're going to stop the human race's extinction, not you two trying to kill each other!"

Zexion shook his head, his hair flopping to the side of his face. "If only it was that easy." He said, and turned away. "I can smell Berserkers. We must go – they have Dusks trackers and should be here within the hour."

Heather gripped onto a metal handle sticking out of a large mound of soil and moss, and pulled it out with a squelch. She handed Sola's shotgun to the girl. "Then I hope they enjoy the smell of Keybearers and gunpowder!" Heather roared pridefully as Sola grabbed the shotgun, and emptied the ammo cartridge – most of the bullets had shattered upon impact, she only had a few rounds.

"_This is Rebound 430, do you respond?_" A female voice over the radio said.

"Xolas… Am I glad to hear you!" Heather said back to the girl.

"_Admiral Heather! Glad to know you're still alive! Did her find her?"_ Xolas radioed back.

"Affirmative, Xolas. Sola's here with us."

"_Looks like Anissem and Kairi will have their strike, then. Glad to know you're all safe. I'm inbound._" Xolas said, and sure enough, a Roger came into view, and hovered down, the immense engine forces blowing away the nearby dust. The marines and Sola filed in, and the dropship flew off.

-b-

The roger eased itself into a small inside landing pad. "Sorry for the close-quarters landing." An engineer said to the crew on the landing dropship. The engineer turned to his assistant. "Best tell the Captain that the strike is going ahead as planned!"

"_Sorry Sola, I have to take off again. Some marines need pickup near the city centre._" Xolas said to her Somebody.

"No problem – just come back alive." Sola replied.

Sola, Heather and the marines walked into a large room, the entrance to a heavily guarded bunker. Sitting over on a rock were three wounded marines.

"Hey guys, look! It's Sola!" One of them said, nudging another one.

"Sola? You mean a Keybearer is here?" The other one said in amazement.

"No bullshitting?" A marine with both his eyes covered in a bloody bandage said. "You guys better not be-"

"No guys, it's really her! It's all gonna be okay!" The second said.

Kairi walked up to them. "Where on Hollow Bastion was she?" She asked Heather.

"Sleeping on the job in the backyard." Heather replied with a smile.

Kairi laughed for a second. "Just like your brother would have. It's more than welcome to see you, Sola."

Sola shook Kairi's hand. "And yourself, Ma'am."

"Let me fill you in." Kairi said, and they began walking to the control room.

"You jumped from the Nobody ship four hours ago. Since then, through sheer persistence and numbers, they managed to punch a tiny hole in our Orbital Gun defenses. We're still managing to destroy most of the new ships that come in, but in the time it took us to rearrange our defenses… About thirty Nobody ships got past what little defences we had waiting at the moon… Smashed half of the surface defense ships before they even got off the ground. The resulting dead and wounded numbers from the following plasma attack were…"

She paused as a medic wheeling a stretcher ran between the group, a horribly wounded marine groaning on top of it. "…Extensive." Kairi finished. They walked into the control room, a room full of computers and marines.

"Xemnas could have set up fort anywhere he wanted, as we have little to no surface defence ships left. But, he's holed up with all his forces in the Dark Depths. Then, they started firing their plasma cannon into that massive gap we thought was empty space, between the Dark Depths and Maleficent's old castle. They're looking for something."

"What about the Cavern of Remembrance?" Sola asked.

"Sora's group managed to hold them in their attack, and he found out information that they know how to shrink the Crystals into a smaller size. But, they're gonna give that attack another shot soon. However, Lixnus, Xeonide, Demetrix and the New Organization Originals were unfortunately, intercepted and captured. They, with Ares, are on Xemnas' ship, _Pathway Into Darkness_. Luckily, Axel and Demyx managed to avoid capture. Now Xemnas is looking for something called the Crystal of Chaos… God knows what he'll be able to do with that."

A Technician spoke up. "Ma'am, I have Admiral Anissem on screen."

The face of Admiral Anissem appeared on the massive viewscreen in front of them, and Heather snapped a salute. "I trust you're contacting me with good news, Captain?" He asked Kairi.

"Not just good, Sir. This is brilliant news." She said back, gesturing to Sola. Onscreen, Anissem smiled.

"I see… Sola, I saw your little stunt from my ship, The AOTW _Firestorm_. What's your status, young lady?" He asked her.

Sola suddenly had to notice how nice he was underneath. "I'm green, and good to go. Sir." She said.

"Thank God. Anyway, Kairi's come up with a great plan… But without you leading our ground forces in support, I didn't think we'd get away with it." Anissem said.

"Our intelligence says that The World That Never Was is practically deserted - Xemnas has 99 percent of his ships here. Every new ship that gets through, he orders straight to the Dark Depths. He's set up anti-aircraft guns around the Dark Depths – anti-aircraft guns that could tear a ship like the _Peacemaker_ in half." Kairi informed them.

Heather continued. "We can't afford to turn the Orbital Guns around – that would leave a gap in our space defenses, and we just can't afford that. But if we get you and all the marines we have to take out a few of the AA guns, punch a gaping, scary hole in their defensive perimeter…"

"I'll initiate a low-level strike with all the ships I have left. Hit 'im right where it hurts, in the crotch." Anissem finished. "I only have a handful by my side, Sola. But I have conviction that we can take out the _Pathway Into Darkness_… And stop Xemnas from finding whatever doomsday device he's digging up."

"I'll do my best." Sola said.

-c-

"The Crystal of Darkness has been successfully retrieved and shrunk." Xaldin said, picking up the purple crystal, now the size of a softdrink can. "I'm teleporting it to Xemnas now." Xaldin made darkness surround the crystal, and it disappeared from his hand. Then suddenly, a tapping noise filled the chamber. Xaldin turned to see Sora rising after dropping from a few stories above. Xaldin's lances appeared, and covered him. Several Dragoons appeared. "KILL THE DEVIL!" Xaldin barked.

Sora looked the Dragoons, smirked, and summoned Ultima Weapon. Sora drew his Combat Rifle and fired, spraying 15 bullets a second at the incoming Nobodies. They were torn in half as the armour piercing bullets obliterated them. When they were all dead, Xaldin got four of his lances to hover in front of him, and they protected him from Sora's hail of bullets.

Sora dashed forward and drove the Ultima Weapon in-between the lances, only for Xaldin to tighten the two lances, trapping Sora's Keyblade, and twisting – sending Sora flying. Sora landed on the roof and pushed off. Xaldin saw him coming, and sent all six of his lances flying, point first, at Sora. The Keybearer fired his Combat Rifle, the bullets ricocheting off, until one bullet hit the right place, and sent all the lances flying off into different directions.

Xaldin could only watch, shellshocked, as Sora flew ever closer to him, the Ultima Weapon's point heading straight for his head. Sora drove it in-between Xaldin's eyes, and heard the Whirlwind Lancer's ear-splitting scream.

Sora calmly recalled his Keyblade and walked into a Roger dropship, taking the controls. He rose the machine and flew off, heading toward the highway where Xemnas' defenses were. Suddenly the Roger jolted – he'd been hit from long range! Sora lost control and the dropship spiraled down. Sora bailed out at last second, watching the Roger crash and burn on the ground below. Sora touched down, heard running behind him, and swung to see Sola running toward him.

-d-

Axel and Demyx stood in the room where they had just found the Crystal of Chaos. Axel got on the radio to Sora. "The Crystal of Chaos is secure, we are coming back down. Wiczensky! Paratz! How's our exit?" Nothing but static. "We aint alone." Axel said, drawing his chakrams.

Suddenly a blur sped in front of them – an invisible Nobody. "Shit!" Axel swore, and set his chakrams on fire, then threw them. They clanked uselessly against the Harbinger armour, but they hit Lexaeus' invisibility unit. The Harbinger grabbed Axel by his cloak and flung him into the wall, knocking him out.

"A Harbinger! Axel, stay down!" Demyx said, as he aimed two Submachine Guns at Lexaeus. He fired, raining hundreds of bullets at the Harbinger. Lexaeus jumped, and with one mighty swing of his Tomahawk, disarmed Demyx and knocked him out. The Crystal of Chaos rolled out of Demyx's hand, and Lexaeus reached for it. Suddenly it flew away, and the ex-Silent Hero looked to see it attach to the end of Saix's Claymore, which could control gravity around it.

"Exceptional work, Harbinger. You truly are a master of your craft." Saix said, with smugness in his voice.

"Saix… This Crystal of the Journey was my responsibility! When Xemnas learns that you have taken credit for the completion of this mission… He will end your life!" Lexaeus said, as two Berserkers walked in and took Axel and Demyx's unconscious bodies.

"Correction: you are merely a scapegoat for the Organization. Now your old is **mine**." Saix said. "And when Xemnas learns of it? You Fool. A scapegoat can't be trusted to collect a Crystal – so Xemnas **ordered** me to do it." Saix swung his Claymore forward, and the wind swept Lexaeus off his feet, his helmet flying off, and his head hit the stone wall, making him collapse.

"It has begun. Alert every Berserker alive… Every single Samurai is to be killed immediately. Too long have they lived as the leaders of our armies! It is Xemnas' command: The age of the Berserker has come!"

-e-

Sora and Sola, only eight years of age, lay on the sands of the Destiny Islands. They looked up at the stars, wondering what each one was. Sora broke the silence.

"Do you ever think about what those lights could be?" Sora asked. "I mean, no-one ever speaks about anything beyond the island."

"Like, another world?" Sola responded, looking at him. "Maybe..."

"Maybe someone up there is wondering up there is wondering what it's like here." Sora said, once again gazing toward the stars, his small body illuminated by the shimmering light of the water.

"You're probably right..." Sola said, shifting her gaze again. "Do you ever want to meet them?"

"I'm determined to meet them." Sora said, looking at his twin sister. "Aren't you?"

Sora's head cleared from memories to reality. Sora could feel consciousness beginning to regain – the endless cold he felt, and his clothes weighed down by dirt. He coughed, feeling sand fall out of his mouth. He wiped a clump of dirt from a wound on his face. He could see a purple globe of plasma falling towards a spot a few metres away – the vertigo of the globe sent him back into his memories one last time.

"_Do you think we'll ever meet them_?" It ran through his exhausted mind again.

The burst of searing hot plasma tore through the dirt, sending shards of fried dirt and glass into the surrounding area, and awakening Sora from his memories. The world around him seemed to spin, and a series of voices filled his confused head. Then, suddenly, a burst of transmission from his headset brought him back to focus. It was Sola.

"EVERYONE! RETREAT, NOW!" She sounded on the verge of tears. Sora managed to struggle to his feet, picking up his grimy Keyblade. No-one made his baby sister cry.

"Any sign of Sora? That last blast tore us apart." He heard Admiral Heather's weary voice over the radio.

"Negative Ma'am... I think he's gone…" Another Marine breathed in gasps.

"Not quite yet." Sora whispered, viewing the plasma blasts headed toward him. He faced the Keyblade into the ground and stabbed into it, creating a Reflega shield around him – the plasma exploded against his shield, shaking the ground beneath him and washing his form with much-needed warmth. Sora looked up as the hexagons that made up his shield fell to the ground and shattered, one by one. The coast was clear, and he began running. He pulled his automatic rifle and sprayed a couple of bullets at the stump of a tree blocking his path, and leapt off the edge of the plateau - right into a force of about twenty Nobody Berserkers.

-f-

"Harbinger! Harbinger!" Lexaeus snapped awake at the call. He sat up, his armour clanking and clicking as he did. He could feel coagulated blood cling to his head where had hit the wall. The one talking to him was Vice, the commander of the Samurais.

"We have been betrayed. Two hours ago, the Berserkers laid an immediate attack on the Council… And murdered every Samurai councilmen. They tried to kill our forces on the battlefield, on board ships… Everywhere." Vice said, as he helped Lexaeus up.

Vice looked like every other Samurai Nobody, very tall, but he wore a gold robe instead of Nobody white. Also, there was his distinctive injury – Half of his lower jaw had been cut off in a battle with a human Keybearer at the start of the war. He held two of the swords that Nobodies usually carried, and his personality was deadly serious.

"We must link up forces with the others. Luckily, our soldiers managed to capture about 15 battleships… And one Capital Ship." He said. Lexaeus nodded, picked up the Harbinger helmet, and put it on his head.

"I know what we must do." He said, picking up his Tomahawk. "We must join forces to fight our common enemy."

"With the humans." Vice said, sheathing his swords. "Of course. Their ships are complete jokes, but they have respectable skills on the ground."

"They know nothing of the betrayal yet. Perhaps we can ask to join forces **before** their commanders learn and decide to target us." Lexaeus said.

"Of course. We have about 1700 troops who survived… That's enough for 100 each to a ship, and 200 for the Capital ship." Vice informed the Harbinger. "We must stop Xemnas from getting to the Fortress of the Crystals."

Lexaeus nodded. "Then let's join the humans."

-g-

The massive Nobody anti-aircraft gun exploded in a massive flash of blue. Sora and Sola, responsible for it's destruction, walked toward the massive crater of the Dark Depths – surrounded by about twenty Nobody ships. Inside was a massive domed installation, which split into eighths and slid open. Out of the circle raised a massive, cannon-like object, pointing directly vertical.

Suddenly, about eighty Forblaze fighters flew over, followed by sixteen human ships. "All ships, fire! FIRE AT WILL!!" Admiral Anissem roared, and at least nine of the ships fired their main burst cannons at the _Pathway Into Darkness_. It was completely unphased, and even as one or two Nobody ships blew up and fell, the massive vertical cannon began to charge blue energy. It grew to a blue beam that stretched upward and began to form a ball.

Suddenly, a massive shockwave shook the area, shaking the ships in the sky. There was a flash of blue and white, and the noise of a whining explosion, followed by a high-pitched drone, and then, Gorgo's voice.

"_This... Is the whimper._"

Sola rubbed her eyes. Sora could taste blood, and felt his mouth to find out that his face had scraped along the rocky surface when the shockwave hit. The twins looked up to see a massive midnight blue and black ball swirling in the sky. All around them, the human ships were immobile. They heard a heavy coughing over the radio.

"What the hell was that? Did Xemnas just activate the Crystals?" Anissem wheezed heavily.

"Negative, Sir…" Kairi responded. "But something certainly happened…"

"Continue the fire! Destroy them!" Anissem ordered, and the human ships sprung into action and sent three Nobody ships spiraling into balls of flame with their burst cannons. Suddenly, Xemnas ordered his ships to attack, and his voice was heard on the human radio.

"_The Final Journey is an arm whose momentum crushes down upon your race! We are the dagger in it's hand!"_

Five Nobody ships fired their plasma cannons, enough bower to burn half a continent. They all headed toward the _Peacemaker_, with Kairi on board. Kairi and her technicians closed their eyes and waited for the explosion, the excruciating heat…

But nothing came. Kairi opened her eyes to see that Anissem's ship, the _Firestorm_, was burning before her, sinking to the ground. It had blocked all the enemy shots. "One for the human race!" Anissem yelled over the radio.

Heather walked up beside Sora and Sola, and sat down on a rock. "He's gone…" She said, holding her head in her hands. Her uniform was covered in grime and dirt, and burned in some places. There was an open wound slowly trailing blood from her arm, and her face was bruised.

They heard Kairi again. "The crew of the _Firestorm_ just died for this shot, people! Make it count!" Sure enough, the humans fired again, their cannons sending down five more of Xemnas' ships. Then, the Nobodies started to charge their cannons. They were about to fire, until one of their Capital Ships went down in a burning mess.

"Save the human fleet! Xemnas' end has come!" Vice announced over the Samurai's radio. Half of the Samurai fleet – seven ships and the Capital Ship, _Shadow of Twilight_, flew in, firing their Plasma cannons.

"What's going on?" Teague asked from Sola's wrist.

"Humans!" Vice barked. "The Berserkers and Dusks have betrayed us. We ask for your comradeship!"

"We'll talk!" Kairi said, firing her burst cannon and destroying an enemy ship. "But first, Xemnas and his Berserkers have been joyfully digging their own grave – it would be impolite of us to not push 'em into it!"

But before the humans and Samurais could start firing, the Nobody ships turned and flew into the ball that was hanging ominously in mid-air. The ships disappeared.

"It must be some kind of portal…" Heather wondered out loud.

"Attention all AOTW Ships!" Yelled a familiar voice. They looked to see a Roger dropship headed toward them, flying out of the wreckage that was the AOTW _Firestorm_. "It's me! I managed to find some survivors, and we made it out!" Anissem's voice came over the radio. "And I got something we might all want to see!"

-h-

In a room on the Samurai Capital Ship _Shadow of Twilight_, 1812 Hollow Bastion time

On one side of the room, there were Samurais. Vice, Lexaeus, and several other high-ranking Samurais. On the other side, there were humans. Leon, Kairi, Heather, Anissem, Sora, Sola, Riku, Roxas and Xolas all stood there. In the middle, on the large data table made to give holographic images of battles, Gorgo was speaking. Or, at least, a message from her.

"_Sola! Xemnas has modified the Keyhole to the Infinity Void… It can't be closed with the Keyblade now. I can only tell you a portion of what I know – Xemnas, he knows I'm in his inner computer network. He knows about the portal – where it leads. On the other side, there's a weapon. A sort of Failsafe… A way to close the Infinity Void and end the war, without using one of the Crystals – AUGH!_"

Everyone in the room tensed as Gorgo screamed and dropped to her knees. She was shaking, and the streams of data that surrounded her disappeared for a second, then flickered back on.

"_Hurry, Sola. The Fortress of the Crystals… There isn't much time. I miss you. And Teague._" The message ended.

On the table, Teague walked up to the message, which had frozen in place. Teague tried to touch Gorgo's face, but his hand passed right through her. "I'm sorry, Teague." Sola said to her AI counterpart.

"No matter, Keybearer." Vice said. "We've heard overly enough. Our last battle lies on the other end of that portal, with our final destined fight against the Berserkers and Xemnas!" Several Samurais roared their approval.

"Fine… Us humans will stay here, on Hollow Bastion. We'll hold on as long as we absolutely can." Leon said.

"Are you deaf, human? Your world's destruction is guaranteed." Vice said. He stepped out of his chair. "A Berserker army! A Crystal of Chaos! We barely survived today - a small battle compared to Xemnas' full force."

Leon was quick argue back. "And you, in justification of 'cleansing' the area, just burned half a country! Maybe the Berserkers aren't the only Nobodies not worth trusting. Maybe I should worry about more than Xemnas' troops!"

"One single Nobody can turn a human into a Heartless. One single Shadow Heartless can infect and effectively eradicate a species and destroy a world! You saw it yourself with Hollow Bastion before it was revived! But in the first place, were it not for the Harbinger's advice, I would have burnt it to the point where it would be as barren as before!" Vice growled.

"Sir, with all due respect, Gorgo has a Failsafe! A way to end it safely!" Heather said, only to be rounded on by Leon.

"Gorgo? Did you not see her? How much of her matrixes were damaged, and possibly corrupted? Possibly virused? For all we know, her solution is a Nobody trap!"

"We should enter the portal with the Samurais." Kairi said. "Find out for ourselves – surely this Failsafe exists, otherwise Gorgo wouldn't have spoken of it."

Leon placed a hand on Kairi's shoulder. "What we **should** do, and by the order of the human race, **must** do, Captain, is understand. That this is humanity's finality. Victory or death. Here. At Hollow Bastion. We fight here for the last time, and we'll risk everything to save ourselves – Every last man, woman, and child!" His aggression fell, and he hung his head. "If we stand our ground… We might just make it through."

"No." Lexaeus said, walking forward. "If your AI is correct… And the Failsafe does exist... If Xemnas takes a hold of it, we're all dead."

"We are sending eight of our ships to The World That Never Was… To put a world into Samurai hands. Roxas and Xolas volunteered to help." Vice said, and the two companions to Sora and Xolas nodded.

Leon sighed. "You'd risk your life for the Samurais?" He asked and the two nodded.

"Sir, With respect, We both commanded the Samurais… And we wanna fight alongside them again." Roxas said, and Admiral Leon nodded.

"What about you four?" Leon asked Heather, Anissem, Sola and Sora. "Riku and Kairi have opted to stay back here and defend."

Sora stepped forward to Leon. "Leon… We'll go with the Samurais beyond the portal… We'll find Gorgo's Failsafe… And we'll either bring it back, or use it there!"

"I'll donate the _Skies of the Land and Ocean_." Heather said.

"And I'll keep in regular contact with you guys here. Let you know what's happening, and make some decisions on behalf of the fleet." Anissem finished.

Leon sighed again. "Hollow Bastion… Is our final stand. Our last world on which we can fight. You trust Gorgo and Teague that much? To pin all your hopes on a solution that may or may not exist?" Leon asked Sola.

"Sir! Yes, SIR!" Sola said back immediately.

Leon placed a hand on Sora's shoulder. "This is a decision you've made for humanity. I'm not sure if you've just saved our whole race… Or doomed us all." He said, then turned. "Hell, whichever one it is... I sure hope to God that Failsafe exists, because if it doesn't… I probably won't live to see sundown tomorrow."

-i-

Heather and Anissem stood in the armoury, checking various weapons. Heather was reading a note Anissem gave her intently, and then stared at her master, handing back the note. "If I don't make it back, and what it says on that note happens," Anissem said, checking his favourite shotgun, "Please do what is right." He finished. "Alright, Admiral?"

"Sir, you are looking at the leader of FAILSAFE." Heather replied saluting.

The Harbinger and Vice readied their Samurais, who jumped to their feet, equipping their 7 ships and the _Shadow of Twilight_ with weapons and equipment. A small force of about 200 humans loaded their gear, and stuffed the _Skies of the Land and Ocean_ with all manner of vehicles and supplies. Finally, it was time.

Leon stood in a Roger dropship, a look of half-anger, half-sorrow on his face as he watched Heather and Sora standing there, saluting. The Roger closed its doors and flew back down to Radiant Garden, as Heather turned to Sora. "Come on… Let's finish this war." She said to him and Sora nodded. They heard a low rumbling, and looked to see the Samurai ships flying into the portal.

"Punch it." Heather said, and the _Skies of the Land and Ocean_ flew into the rolling dark portal.

-j-

Only 4 more chapters, people! Next chapter, Sora and Sola meet a new face… And just what is the Fortress of the Crystals?


	7. Fortress of the Crystals

This Chapter is remastered! A lot of the spacing, scripture, and errors have been fixed!

Glorious Advance

Chapter 7 – Installation of the Crystals

A subspace portal opened. Out of it came nine ships: eight Samurai ships, The Capital Ship _Shadow Of Twilight_, and the Alliance of the Worlds Ship _Skies of the Land and Ocean_. "What… The hell… Is **that**?" Heather wondered out loud, upon seeing the massive object before them in space.

There was a sphere in the middle of it, about the size of Pluto. Pillars of crystal came out of it at many different points, connecting it to what appeared to be a grid that ran around the whole sphere – facing the inner sphere was shimmering blue crystal, but on the outside, facing the ships, was a mosaic of blues, greens, oranges and whites – oceans, forests, deserts, and clouds. The inner sphere, however, was all land and ocean, no crystal.

"That, human… Is the Fortress of the Crystals." Vice said. Suddenly, a large cluster of Nobody ships started menacingly floating toward them.

"Ship Lord!" A Samurai told Vice. "Berserker ships on an inbound vector! We are outnumbered four to one!" He said, with a hint of urgency in his voice.

"Then the bastard Berserkers finally realise an even fight when they see one!" Vice said, sitting up in his chair. "All ships, fire at will! Burn their filthy existence from the stars!" He commanded.

Sola walked into the troop holding bay of a Roger. Inside were a bunch of heavily armed drop troopers. "Xemnas' ship isn't present in the fight. He must've descended to ground level." Heather reported.

"Roger that, ma'am – leave him to us." Sora said, climbing into the Roger's Co-pilot seat. "Drop us out." He told the pilot, and the pilot nodded. Three Rogers dropped into space.

"We're moving into an area labeled by Xemnas as a 'Map Room'" Teague said from Sola's wrist.

"Right. It's on the outer surface of the Installation." Sola observed, the data scrolling across her wrist's data projector.

"How's the dropship, Feren?" Sora asked the pilot.

"She's running a little hot, Lieutenant… But she's good!" She replied.

"Good – break us out." Sora said, and the rear door of the Roger opened to reveal a stunning view – of the immense desert around them, which disappeared – only to reveal a forest or ocean after a kilometer of stunning blue crystal.

"Now there's a great view…" One drop trooper, Kevin, said.

"This view aint for free, Marines!" Sora said. "Because once we land, we're paying with blood! Out first landing zone is to secure a drop zone for Heather's battleship! Priority 2: Find this map room that everyone's looking for. Keep a lookout and listen in often. We'll be getting new Intel, and we need every last bit of it! Even if we don't know wherever the hell we are."

The Roger touched down. "Go! Go! Go!" Sola yelled, and the marines ran out. Three marines scouted around a series of boulders. Kevin took up a sniper position on the hill, and the last five marines, Sola and Sora started moving in-between the rocks.

Suddenly, one of the scouts dropped dead. The other two immediately took cover behind rocks. "COVER'S BLOWN!" Sora yelled. "Pick a target and engage at will!"

Up on the hill, Saix ordered his Berserkers to attack the humans. A single Dusk came flipping up to them. "All-Seer." Saix said, addressing the Dusk. That Dusk had been the only survivor when a whole contingent of Berserkers had entered the Map Room, but had come back with a complete knowledge of the Fortress of the Crystals – thus he became 'The All-Seer'.

"Saix, I highly recommend you do not kill the humans. You need a human with a strong heart to activate the Fortress." The Dusk All-Seer said, and Saix nodded.

Four marines fired their automatic rifles at the Berserkers, downing them in seconds. A Berserker lobbed a grenade at the group. It hit a marine, blowing up two others with him. Another grenade stuck to one of the marine's helmets. He quickly took it off and threw it at a Berserker, the explosion killing the very Berserker who had thrown it. Sora threw his Keyblade, making two Dusks explode into blue sparks. Sola fired her shotgun, killing a Berserker in a single hit.

Up on the hill, Kevin fired again, killing a Berserker – his 9th kill already. He needed something more. He shifted less than a millimeter, and the single tiny crosshair of his scope crossed exactly over Saix's forehead. He pulled the trigger, but just before he did, before Kevin could stop himself – Saix slammed his Claymore on the ground, activating it's gravity function. Blue energy gathered around its blade.

Saix heard a clank, and his Claymore vibrated. He looked at it, and plucked the 5 cm bullet from the field of gravitational energy. "Sniper…" Saix growled. He clicked his fingers, and a Nobody dropship rose up behind him. "Come, All-Seer." He said, and the All-Seer followed him into the dropship.

The dropship flew up, and Kevin looked up at it in horror. Air assault was a sniper's worst nightmare if they were simply sniping from a hill. Suddenly, a thin yellow beam shot out of the dropship and attached itself to Kevin. Kevin yelled as he was wrenched upward by the beam.

The circular hatch opened, and Kevin was pulled through it. The door closed, and Kevin was dumped onto it, coughing and spluttering. He low a low pitched laughing around him. He opened his eyes; saw himself surrounded by Berserkers, and pulled up his Sniper Rifle. "Disarm him." Saix growled, and Kevin felt his Sniper Rifle being torn out of his hands. He briefly considered pulling out his gauntlet, but decided to wait until he was a little less outnumbered.

Suddenly, a Berserker kicked him in the back. He surged with anger, turned to the Berserker, rose up and tried to punch it, but it grabbed his hand, flung him up and kicked him in the stomach. He slammed against the wall, and the riotous laughter of the Berserkers was the last thing he heard as he blacked out.

-a-

The ground troopers suddenly felt the ground shake beneath them, and a distant rumble thundered in the background. Over the hill came a contingent of Samurais, led by Lexaeus. The Samurais were cheering. "What's going on?" Sora asked the Samurais.

"Blessed anarchy! The Samurai fleet has destroyed the Berserkers in space! The _Pathway Into Darkness_ just crashed around a kilometer that way. Best of all, the Behemoths are in open revolt! Xemnas is slaughtering his own troops!" A Samurai yelled, running up to Sora and, being much taller than him, ruffled his hair. Sora shook him off and he ran forward to Lexaeus.

"It's true!" The Harbinger said. "Xemnas has about twenty ships left. He retreated to the far side of the installation – unfortunately, we can't attack him there, because they would see us coming from two hours before an attack – we wouldn't get a single hit in."

Suddenly, a portal opened in space – visible clearly above them. A single Nobody ship came through. "That's the ship _Thought of Redemption_… It was lost in a Heartless attack two days ago..." Vice noted. It was flaming furiously, and speeding straight towards them. "BY THE GODS! BRACE FOR IMPACT!" Vice yelled, and everyone began running. The impact was deafening – only a powerful roaring filled their ears. The shockwave of the impact sent them and several trees flying forward. Sora, Sola and the Harbinger flew into a lake.

A tree crashed into them, entangling the three. They tried to both struggle and hold their breath. They released their air and passed out, just as three tentacles came and grabbed the Harbinger, and the two Keybearers. "**THIS IS NOT WHERE YOU DIE…**" A deep, husky voice boomed. "**BUT MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME…**"

--

Sora's eyes fluttered open. His vision returned to normal. He tried to move, but couldn't. His arms, legs – they were all covered in a sticky goo. His arms and legs were also bound by thick black tentacles, which were also exploring across his body. He heard a screech from next to him, and looked to see Sola, also struggling. Next to her, the Harbinger grunted, trying to free himself.

"What is THAT?" Teague exclaimed, pointing at the mass of solid darkness that seemed to be a giant mouth. It also had hundreds of tentacles writhing around it. It had a massive Heartless symbol on the top of the 'mouth'.

"**I? I AM THE EMBODIMENT OF YOUR DARKNESS, HATRED, RAGE, AND SADNESS.**" It said in a deep, husky voice that rattled the stones around them.

"Relax…" Sora advised his sister. "I'd rather not piss this thing off."

Sola stopped struggling, and instantly the tentacles stopped moving and merely bound her tight.

"**THIS ONE TRIES TO HIDE IT'S SHAME WITH IT'S ARMOUR… BUT IT CANNOT CONCEAL THE TRUTH...**" It said, lifting the Harbinger up. It then picked up Sora and Sola. "**THESE TWO ARE WARRIORS THROUGH AND THROUGH, BRAVE AND NOBLE BUT ALSO YOUNG, FOOLISH, AND UNPREDICTABLE...**"

"Idle talk has never befitted a parasite!" Lexaeus exclaimed. "My time and effort are wasted by your incessant banter! End my life, or set me free!"

"**I HAVE LISTENED LONGER THAN I HAVE LIVED… LISTENING TO THE PROBLEMS, WARS, AND JOY OF THE UNIVERSE AND IT'S INHABITANTS… THROUGH SPACE AND TIME, THROUGH ROCK AND PLANT I HAVE LISTENED! NOW IT IS AT LAST MY TIME TO SPEAK, AND I COMMAND YOU TO LISTEN TO ME!**" It boomed. It pulled up a small, glowing object, and then the reanimated corpse of Xaldin.

"Greetings and Salutations!" The glowing red ball said. "I am 0034 Active Beacon. I am the 34th Observer of the Fortress of the Crystals." It spoke in a relatively high voice, and sounded very cheery.

"And I am Xaldin, The Whirlwind Lancer! Number III in the Organization, Hierarch of the Nobodies!"

"Keybearers? Finally here? Bless my soul, I never expected such a sight in my lifetime, and yet how shameful that you should come within the midst of a Heartless outbreak! We must activate the Fortress if this outbreak is to be contained!" Active Beacon said.

"NO! STOP!" Xaldin shouted. "Stand and listen to me! I have a speech to make to my followers, and nothing shall be done until I am finished!"

"Absolutely incorrect." Active Beacon said. "This Fortress has made a simulation firing 132 times, and has successfully made one actual activation. The fortress is armed and ready, and a crystal is all required to activate it."

"The marvels that the Seraphs, creators of this Fortress, left behind… There are many FAILURES as there are wonders! These Observers are worthless heretics, knowing not a shred of information about the FINAL JOURNEY!"

"YOU BELIEVE THAT I AM MISGUIDED? ALL THAT MATTERS AFTER A HEARTLESS OUTBREAK IS CONTAINMENT!" Active Beacon yelled back. "My internal algorithms and matrixes are at bursting point from your excessive ignorance of Seraph protocols!"

"**THIS OBSERVER FIGHTS FOR CONTAINMENT…**" The massive Heartless said, crushing Active Beacon. "**AND THIS NOBODY PREACHES THE 'FINAL JOURNEY'…**" It snapped Xaldin's corpse in two. "**… AND YET THEY DO NOT REALISE THAT THE TWO ARE ONE IN THE SAME.**"

"**THE TIME HAS COME FOR HEARTLESS, NOBODY, AND HUMAN TO UNITE, TO STOP A COMMON FOE.**" It said. It lifted Lexaeus. "**WARRIOR OF THE SAMURAIS, YOU MUST SEARCH FOR OUR ADVERSARY IN ONE PLACE…**"

It hefted the brother and sister. "**AND YOU TWO SIBLING KEYBEARERS SHALL SEARCH ANOTHER.**"

"**THE COGS OF FATE HAS MADE OUR RACES FOES… BUT HERE, UPON THE ALTAR OF EXTINCTION, WE ARE BROTHERS…**" It boomed, teleporting the three.

--

Sora and Sola landed in a heap on the ground. They got up, and looked around to see a massive, metal, ornately decorated room, with symbols and flashing, holographic panels everywhere. In the middle of the room was a massive topographic map of the Fortress, certain parts of the installation highlighted and labeled in a language Sola couldn't understand. Suddenly, a floating green, glowing ball flew in front of Sola's face.

"A Keybearer…" It said in a high pitched voice.

"Active Beacon? But… We just saw you killed!" Sora said, standing up.

"You mean 0034 Active Beacon? He was reported missing 1062.9 human years ago. His last entry indicates he was captured by the Tomb Master, the enormous Heartless beast capable of moving around the Fortress… But greetings! I am 0035 Blessed Avatar, the 35th Monitor of this Installation. My purpose is to inform, and assist in the firing of the Fortress of the Crystals."

"We'll start there. Just what is this Fortress? What does it have to do with the Crystals?" Sora asked.

"As you know, There are 4 Crystals," Blessed Avatar began to explain. "Each one corresponding to one of the 4 races trapped in living together. There were originally 6 – one for the Chasers, and another for the Phantoms – but not even I have access to that information. But anyway, the Crystal of Light restores all human worlds if activated by a human, but kills every human in the universe if activated by a Nobody or Heartless.

The same principle applies to the Crystal of Darkness for the Nobodies, and the Crystal of Nothingness for the Heartless. But an extra was created: A Crystal of Chaos. This Crystal was made purely for a backup plan. This Fortress can be activated by any of the Crystals, but the Chaos Crystal does nothing **but** activate the Fortress."

"Activate the Fortress? What exactly does that do?" Sola asked.

"My creators, the ones who called themselves the Seraphs, were handed the task of protecting the universe. So they needed to protect the Universe from the creatures that inhabited it – The humans, those adaptive creatures who relied on tools for all their needs. The Nobodies, more beast than being. And the Heartless, the most uncontainable parasite the universe had ever seen. So they created the Crystals, and this Fortress.

The Crystals were given to an opposite race, so that if one always threatened to grow too powerful, another could activate that race's crystal to destroy them. My creators quickly realized their mistake, and so quickly built this place. This Fortress can be activated by any of the Crystals, and so when the Heartless threatened the universe, my creators used the Crystal of Nothingness to activate the Fortress." Blessed Avatar said.

"And then? What happened to the Seraphs?" Sola asked.

"After the Heartless had defeated all other strategies my creators employed, the Fortress was activated. Thus, the Serpahs and all other life in the universe with sufficient mass to become a Heartless… Perished. All according to plan." Blessed Avatar said, unphased.

"Died?" Sola gasped. "You mean activating this place doesn't just destroy Heartless… It kills… Everything?"

"Correct. The activation scattered the Crystals, and all life was forced to start over from single-celled bacterial organisms." Blessed Avatar said. "For a time, for the only thing capable of living or speaking were us Observers. It began with 0001 Complete Future. It was around the time of 0027 Brutal Symphony that the Heartless calling itself the Tomb Master surfaced. And then, modern history began in the past 500 years, beginning from the time when light was spread around the universe, and the races began fighting over it – eventually causing the several smaller worlds that now exist today."

"Can you tell us where we can activate the Fortress?" Sora asked, earning a curious glare from Sola.

Blessed Avatar seemed delighted. "Of course! Just wait a minute while I access the activation specifics – I shall return soon!" He floated out the window and flew downwards.

Sora was suddenly tackled by his younger sister, and pinned against the wall. "What the hell was that about?" Sola hissed. "Activating this place will kill everyone!"

"I know!" Sora hissed back. "But we need to go to the Control Room, to stop Xemnas. If we tell Avatar we're going there to stop it from activating, he will try to stop us – and he has this whole place at his command, and he's been here alone for thousands of years – he may very well be insane!"

Suddenly, Blessed Avatar was back. "If you are currently exchanging signs of affection," It said, "Do not be bothered on my account – I would merely like to point out the incestful nature of your position." Sola got off Sora.

"I do have the necessary information. There are two Control Rooms. One of them is main control room, where the Fortress is activated. It seems a being called Xemnas is on his way there. There is another control room. In the other one, you can take of the Crystals there and you can activate certain parts of it. For example, you could eliminate a certain race of Heartless without damaging the other races. A being called Saix is there, attempting to bring about something." Avatar said.

"Saix must be trying to just destroy the Samurais, but leave the Berserkers untouched!" Sora said.

"But to activate the Fortress, it seems you need a human with a strong heart. Saix has a human named 'Kevin.' And Xemnas has a human named… 'Heather'." Avatar said, and Sola gasped.

"Does that name mean anything to you?" Avatar asked Sora and Sola.

--

"Human, even this simple task should be within your brainpower. All you need to is take the Crystal of Darkness in hand…" Kevin struggled against Saix's grip. "AND OBEY ME WHEN I GIVE YOU AN ORDER!" He roared, slamming his fist on the activation board.

"Take caution, Master Saix! That human, Kevin - his power readings are high!" The Dusk All-Seer said. In his fury, Saix grabbed the Dusk. "One more word, All-seer, and I'll tear your eye from you like a wing from a bird!"

Saix turned back to Kevin. "Which is naught but pleasure when compared to the fate **you** will suffer at the hands of my Berserkers and I..."

"Saix, end this madness." Lexaeus said, walking on to the bridge.

"Harbinger? Inconceivable." Saix said in utter disbelief, turning around.

"Put down the Crystal!" The Harbinger advised urgently.

"Lay down my arms? And defy the will of Xemnas, the heirach?" Saix asked in sheer amazement.

"Dark secrets fill this place… Dark secrets even Xemnas could not forsee, nor defy." Harbinger said quietly.

Several of the Berserkers growled and stepped forward, aiming their weapons. Saix held a hand out to signal them to keep back. "I warn you caution, Lexaeus." Saix advised. "Your mouth blurts out heresy!"

"Heresy? Or the truth?" Lexaeus asked, then turned to the Dusk All-Seer, who had a complete understanding of the Fortress. "All-Seer… All things have purpose. To what duty is this Fortress bound?" He asked.

"Accumulated, this Fortress, along with the crystals, were-" He was interrupted as Saix grabbed him by the massive glowing orb that decorated the Dusk's forehead.

"GRAAH! SPEAK NO MORE!" He roared at the Dusk with the glowing blue orb in it's head. They heard footsteps come up next to the Harbinger, and a pair of gun barrels aimed at Saix's head.

"Please…" Ares said. "Don't shake the lightbulb."

The Berserkers growled and stepped forward again. "Even Nobodies have brains, and I trust you wanna keep yours! So it'd been within my interest to tell those bearish fiends to cool down!" Ares said to Saix.

Saix growled and grunted a command to his Berserkers. They backed up.

"Be my guest, it's all yours." Ares said to the Harbinger.

"The Sacred Fortress, what exactly is it?" Lexaeus asked the Dusk.

"Weapons of last resort, used by the Seraphs to eliminate all sentient life – therefore rendering the Heartless harmless." Suddenly, Saix gripped it by it's head and tore it clean off.

Saix then grabbed Kevin's hand and forced the Crystal of Darkness into the activation board. "Now, Harbinger!" Ares yelled, shooting her Glocks. Kevin got out his Gauntlet, a weapon with a foot-long blade protruding from each knuckle, and slashed two Berserkers. Several Berserkers burst under Ares' fire.

"The Final Journey is nigh!" Saix yelled, pulling up his Claymore. "And the new master race, the Berserkers, will see the Organization safely to their end!"

Lexaeus dashed at Saix, clashing Tomahawk with Claymore. Meanwhile, Ares and Kevin managed to shoot and slash all the new enemies that came through. Saix leapt up, did a forward flip, and brought down his Tomahawk – pillars of blue energy exploded all around them. Lexaeus stuck his Tomahawk into the ground, and rocks flew up, smashing into Saix.

Saix stabbed with his Claymore, which Lexaeus avoided. Lexaeus grabbed the Claymore, wrenched it out of Saix's hands, and threw it off the edge. Saix watched in horror as the weapon fell into nothingness.

"And now, My revenge!" Lexaeus yelled. Saix backed up, pleaded for mercy – but Lexaeus swung his Tomahawk into Saix's stomach, which sent him flying off the edge – where he was impaled by his own Claymore, which was sticking upwards out of the ground. Lexaeus quickly ran up and pulled the Crystal of Darkness from the activation board. Ares and Kevin followed him.

"We must go!" The Harbinger said, throwing the Crystal of Darkness into the great hole where Saix had met his doom. Ares and Kevin agreed, and Ares ran into Saix's dropship, which was parked outside. "Hop in!" She told the other two. Lexaeus and Kevin ran into the dropship, and it lifted off.

--

Ares' dropship pulled up outside the map room, and opened it's doors to Sora and Sola. Lexaeus was already inside. "We managed to defeat Saix." He said. "But unless we beat Xemnas, it will all be for naught."

"However, your A.I. has a way to finish the Heartless!" Blessed Avatar asked. "Pray tell, we must get there soon!" The Nobody dropship rose up, and flew to the Control Room's co-ordinates, supplied by Teague and Avatar.

"The Harbinger is right!" Exclaimed Ares. "Until we kill Xemnas, and stop the Installation from activating… Nothing else matters."

-- To Be Continued…


	8. One Final Effort

This Chapter is remastered! A lot of the spacing, scripture, and errors have been fixed!

Glorious Advance

Chapter 8 – One Final Effort

A flash lit the sixteen-year-old girl's vision, illuminating the blank, gold desert landscape. Weeds wavered and blew lightly in the wind, carrying smoke and sand sky-high. Her eyes were weary after days of fighting.

The other was standing straighter than the girl, his combat experiences standing strong, event though his mind was hurt and clouded from years of war. To him, the flash was a warning. He could hear it speak…

_"__Gods... Devils... Monsters... They have all fallen by my my hand… The hand of time."_

_"Would you sacrifice me for a pointless mission?"_

Sora walked past the flaming wreckage of a Roger dropship – the tomb that held a few of the billions of humans dead in this war. Sola heard the flash speak as well. But she heard different things.

"_I am time - The shield, sword, and armour of the universe... I am the scourge of all things."_

_I am Gorgo. I know you, Sola - I know your past and here, out of time, out of mind... I can see your future."_

Sola walked out, over to the cliff face that faced a crater – a crater in which the upward pointing Control Room dominated the scenery. All around it, however – was the true spectacle. Thousands upon thousands of Berserkers and Samurais fought each other, firing blasts of plasma that were no more than flashing lines from the cliff face.

"Let every human know!" Vice yelled over the radio, as his massive ship flew over. "This is the Capital Ship, _Shadow of Twilight_! Go and kill Xemnas, while we deal with the Berserkers!"

Hundreds of Nobody dropships and fighter planes flew behind the _Shadow of Twilight_, Spewing lines of blue, green and purple plasma at the enemy ground forces. A Nobody dropship landed in front of them.

Before them rose a massive machine – it had a front, dominated by a massive green plasma cannon. It's body was that of an ant, two bulbous sections with two legs protruding from each side of the first one, and one leg from either side of the back. It was clearly Nobody technology.

"Listen – you guys have been AWOL for the past few days. I, along with everyone else, am a bit pissed off at you two. But if we stand by idly, that damn Nobody is gonna fire this Fortress – and we're all going to die." Said a voice Sora recognised – it was deadly, but at the same time, casual.

"Kevin! But how – you fell at the landing zone a few days ago!" Sora exclaimed, staring right into the blue viewport of the bug-like machine.

"Oh, please." Kevin said, lowering the ramp leading into the machine. "I lived through the battle of the Destiny Islands. Surviving that one was tough. Berserker capture? Child's play."

"Are you sure?" Sola asked the Marine, staring at the huge, walking machine.

"Listen! You should know that when you joined the AOTW, you had to abandon being wusses! It seems I've gotta bring you two back to the real path of my beloved Marine corps! So, I brought this **motivational device**. Human militaries love big machines with cannons - trust the formula, it works!" Kevin exclaimed with pride.

"Xemnas has shut himself in the control room. We can't get in." Sora said to the machine.

"Well, fate says that we shall enter the control room using **conventional** methods." Kevin replied, beginning to charge the front plasma cannon. "Hop in, and man the turrets. I'm gonna need cover from air attacks." With that Sola and Sora ran up and manned a plasma turret just as the _Skies of the Land and Ocean_ flew over.

"That destroyer is gonna be a big help. Thanks, Kevin." Ares said over the radio to Sephiroth. " After all, **he** never buys a girl anything." She referenced to Sora.

Kevin sat down in the main control chair. "His loss - I know that lassies love big cannons." He said.

Ares chuckled, then turned her radio frequency to the twins. "Our satellite images show that something big is happening in the Control Room. How far away are you?" She asked them.

"Too far away." Sola said back, as the Destroyer started trudging across the battlefield, killing a group of combatants with each colossal step.

-a-

The Berserker hit Heather in the stomach again, making her fall to the ground. "Hah hah... You're pathetic. You captured me, and you can't even give me a good beating?" She asked it. It grunted cockily, then picked her up by the neck. "You're not impressing anyone!" Heather grinned.

"LET HER GO! You absolute fool!" Xemnas roared at the Berserker. "She wants you to end her life by accident, so that I can't use her to fire the Fortress!" He turned around to the Control Room's panel. "I'd rather her be alive for the big moment…" He advised, smiling. The Berserker forced Heather's head onto the panel. She resisted for a second, until the Nobody forced her down.

"Heh… Lord of the Nobodies can't fire even start his own Final Journey?" Heather growled, longing for the Forward Unto Dawn. "The thing you've preached about for years?"

"I am humble in saying this... We do need a human's assistance." Xemnas said, inserting the Crystal of Chaos into the Control Panel. "But once the whole universe is dead... There will be no-one to share the secret."

Suddenly, a Roger dropship burst through the massive stained glass window behind them. It crushed a Berserker, and smashed half the room in - debris fell from the roof as the Roger's door opened. A Berserker got to its feet, only to be shot dead by a shotgun burst. The beast clattered to the ground, dropping its plasma weapon.

"Heather!" Anissem yelled. "Board up for evac!"

"Anissem! No! Get out of here!" Heather yelled at the old Admiral.

"I've been with you from the start, and I'm not losing you!" He said, cocking his shotgun and bursting a round into a Berserker.

"All you're doing is stalling the unavoidable!" Xemnas yelled at the humans. "One of you two worthless humans will light the Fortress! You cannot hope to kill me and my guards, and then escape through my armies!"

"Hate to say it, but he's right…" Anissem growled. He pointed his shotgun at Heather. "I'm sorry, Heather." He said, his eyes filled with sadness. "If I kill you, then Xemnas will have no prisoner to activate the Fortress. One for the human race, Heather. No… One for all life."

Heather nodded, her eyes showing determination. "Do it!" She said, stepping forward. "Me… And then yourself. NOW!" She commanded.

5 shots rang across the clearing. Anissem's eyes widened and he let out a gasp of shock. The shotgun dropped to the ground with a clatter and the Admiral fell to the ground, his back sizzling from the shots of the plasma weapon. Anissem breathed his last as the thousand-degree heats ate away at his skin.

"NO!" Heather screamed, bursting into full-on tears. A Berserker ran up and held her as she tried to make a run for Anissem. Xemnas walked over to Anissem's corpse, dropping the plasma weapon carelessly.

"You humans love your Keybearers, even as they sacrifice their fellow man for what has to be done…" He strode over to Heather, smirking at her struggles. "They are among the few humans who are strong, and yet..." Even those who pretend as the strong... Are oh so weak. Should you live amongst the Gods, as I am destined to… You must not hesitate, nor yield! You must be powerful!" He held her hand in his, and turned to the control panel, and pressed the activation button with the human's hand.

Xemnas raised his arms in insane joy as before them, four massive cylinders, representing the Crystals, rose out of the ground. One of them was red (Crystal of Nothingness), but the other three were coloured blue. One of the cylinders, representing the Crystal of Chaos, lit up green. The Control Room started rumbling.

The massive amphitheatre split into four quarters, which moved away from each other. A beam of blue light began to charge up. On the Control Panel, a notice appeared.

_Installation of the Crystals – 1 percent charged._

Xemnas watched the number tick up to 2. "THE FORTRESS!" He bellowed, as the Crystal sapped at his energy. "LONG FORETOLD THAT'S IT SHALL PURGE THE GALAXY OF ALL WHOM ARE UNWORTHY, LEAVING THE SUPREME TO BE TAKEN BY SALVATION!"

-b-

Sora and Sola rose up in the elevator that lifted them to the Control Room. All that stood between them and Xemnas was 500 metres worth of guards. Suddenly, two Neoshadow Heartless dropped in front of them. Sola cocked her Shotgun, and Sora summoned Oblivion.

"HALT! WE BEAR ONLY A MESSAGE!" One of the Neoshadows gurgled. "EVEN US HEARTLESS ARE AFFECTED BY HIS ACTIONS!" Several small Shadows crept between their legs. The Neoshadows charged forward, the Shadows following suit. "HUMAN AND HEARTLESS MUST UNITE TO STOP... THE FINAL JOURNEY!" A Neoshadow roared.

A single, 500 metre long bridge was all there was. Sora and Sola ran in firing, Neoshadows and Shadows pouring through, devouring Berserkers where they saw them. The poor Berserkers flailed their hammers and fired their plasma weapons into the incoming hordes of Heartless but to no avail. The Heartless engulfed the Berserkers, leaving their broken corpses proof to the Nobodies' downfall.

Sora and Sola walked into the large amphitheatre. On one of the steps was Heather. She held the dead Anissem in her hands, hear eyes staring sadly at his. "Stop this for good... Finish Xemnas..." She said, as she sadly closed his eyelids. They turned and came from opposite directions of the circle. In the middle of the circle, slumped in a heap, was a Xemnas horribly weakened by the Installation sapping his power.

"Ah, Sora, you have come at last… Do you at last realise that you are insignificant to this, our time of judgement?" The Superior asked.

Sora grabbed his adversary's cloak and held his Keyblade to his enemy's throat. "THIS FORTRESS DOES NAUGHT BUT ERADICATE LIFE!" He roared.

"It only eradicates those… Who do not believe... You, and every other pitiful human are amongst them! But us, we Nobodies shall walk the path of transcendance, and I shall lead them, as a God amongst the realm of the omnipotent!" Xemnas said, his eyes filled with insane faith.

"I WILL END YOUR LIFE, AS MY VENGEANCE!" Sora yelled, his teenage body trembling with rage. "ON A MADMAN WHO WOULD TAKE MY HOMEWORLD AND MY MOTHER AWAY!"

In his immense anger, Sora lifted Xemnas up by the throat, facing his back. The Superior's robes changed from black to his final form patterned outfit. "I AM XEMNAS, THE NOBODY OF XEHANORT!" He bellowed, his voice echoing around the room. "SPEAKING FOR ALL WHO FOLLOW OUR CAUSE!"

Sora leaned into Xemnas' ear. "Then the galaxy will be saved... As you are silenced!" Sora hissed, and drove Oblivion into Xemnas' back, and it emerged out of Xemnas' chest. Sora then threw Xemnas off the Keyblade and onto the ground, where he began to dissolve. Sora let out a scream of frustration and rage. He looked to Sola, and she nodded in approval.

Sola turned to the control panel, and took out the Crystal of Chaos. The ground began shaking, and a loud voice began echoing throughout the chamber.

**"FEAR... FOR NOW THAT THE THREAT IS ENDED FOR ALL, ALLIEGANCES ARE DISCARDED, AND HEARTLESS COME ALIVE... THE SMELL OF FOOD AS A SOURCE OF ENTHRALL!**

Sora and Sola stood back to back. "Lose one, gain one. That's the way it is with villains." Sora said calmly, as all around them, black tentacles spread across the room. Sola cocked her shotgun, and began firing at the tentacles that slammed into the ground. Sora sliced a tentacle with his Keyblade, only for another one to come up behind him, and wrap around his body, binding his arms to his torso.

"**YOU HAVE THE SCENT OF DARKNESS ON YOU…**" The Tomb Master growled, and a tentacle rose up in front of Sora. He screamed as it pierced his chest, re-opening the wound he inflicted upon himself with the Dark Keyblade. The tentacles withdrew completely, leaving the two teens there. Sora was kneeling on all fours, panting, blood dripping from his chest.

"Sora…?" Sola gasped, walking toward his brother. She jumped back in shock as Sora's skin and clothes turned black, his spiky hair became jagged antennae, and his eyes turned the brightest gold. "Brother…?" Sola asked, tears welling up within her.

"**Darkness has no brothers!**" Sora growled, jumping up and baring his claws. "**Darkness consumes EVERYTHING!**" He leapt at Sola, his claws slashing furiously. Sola used the Kingdom Key to block Anti-Sora's rabid strikes. He gripped her Keyblade, twisted it out of her hands and threw it away. He slashed again at his sister, and barely missed her face.

The Heartless growled with frustration, and leapt at Sola, landing on her stomach and pinning her to the ground. "Sora! Summon the Keyblade!" Sola yelled at the Heartless that took her brother's body.

"**KEYBLADE… LIGHTS FOR THE WEAK – BEACONS FOR THE DELUDED!**" Sora's body screamed, the Tomb master's voice emitting from the boy's mouth.

"Remember who you are!" Sola yelled at the Heartless, after seeing that it was starting to twitch furiously. "You are Sora! You're a hero of humanity!" Suddenly, a burst of colour appeared to Sora, and the boy threw himself off his sister.

"SOLA! HELP ME!" He screamed at her, crying. Suddenly, the blackness was back again, Sora's eyes reverting to their gold colour.

"**YOU ARE INSIGNIFICANT... ONLY FOOD FOR MY MINIONS!**" The Tomb Master bellowed. Anti-Sora rose up, and it's own voice, Sora's voice mixed with the croaky, husky voice of the Tomb Master, filled the room.

"**The human body is a terrible design. For the first many years of it's life the young is unable to fight, being too underdeveloped. After a very short, 40 year-or-so period of sufficient power, the human is elderly, and becomes useless again. The upright position you take so much pride in leaves your heart vulnerable. And even if you protect your heart, there are places all over your body. These places are the ones which the Heartless probe to take over their immobile host.**"

Suddenly the Tomb Master boomed out again. "**INVADING THESE PLACES SENDS THE HUMAN ACROSS THE RAZOR-THIN WIRE THAT DIVIDES PLEASURE AND PAIN… THE PLACES WE HEARTLESS LIKE TO INVADE MOST, TO FEED OFF THE HUMAN'S SCREAMS.**"

"Sicko!" Sola yelled at Anti-Sora, who had purple smoke trailing off him now. Anti-Sora charged at her. Sola jumped up and avoided the Heartless' slash, then jumped down as the corrupted Keybearer jumped up. She grabbed him by the wrist and flung him further upward, then faced upward as Sora's black body faced her.

She forced herself upward, twirling her Keyblade. She threw it, and identical flashes of blue and white appeared all around the room, each one summoning a different Keyblade. Sola held the Kingdom Key. Placed around them were Oblivion, Oathkeeper, Two Across (A Keyblade from KH2FM+) and Way To Dawn.

Sola faced her brother. "See, Sora! All your friends want you to prevail, to finish this darkness once and for all!"

Sure enough, a spiritual form of Xolas appeared and grabbed Oblivion, as a spiritual Roxas took Two Across. They pointed them both at Sora and launched twin bursts of Keyblade light. The consecutive blasts knocked Anti-Sora and the Tomb Master out Sora's body; now both of Sora's forms hung in mid-air.

Next, Riku's spirit appeared and grabbed Way To Dawn and pointed it at Anti-Sora, whilst Sola did the same with the Kingdom Key. The two fired another twin set of bursts, both flying into Anti-Sora, the blasts tearing the Heartless part from part. Sora now hung in mid-air, his body still clouded by purple smoke.

Sola landed, and looked up. The Oathkeeper directly faced Sora, and Kairi's spirit appeared in front of him. "Ready…?" The redhead asked, and fired the Oathkeeper's line of cleansing energy at Sora. The purple smoke faded, and the teenage dropped to the ground. The Kairi spirit smiled and faded.

Sola ran over to Sora, cradling her brother's head in her hands. "Sola…?" Sora groaned, opening his eyes. Sola knelt her head to Sora's, and tears started streaming down her face. Sora felt, the hot, wet pillows drip onto his face, and he stood up, and placed his arms around his sister.

"Please, Sora – I don't want to lose you… I'm sick of this war, I want it over!" She yelled, in-between gasps.

Sora held her head to his chest, his shirt absorbing her tears. "Then let's finish it. We'll blow this Fortress, and everything with it."

Suddenly, the ground around them started rumbling. Sora stood up and walked over to the window, watching as, outside, massive parts of the Crystal grid circling the inner planet collapsed. Earthquakes cracked through crystal and land, when finally the rumbling stopped, the Crystal of Chaos shattered. The shards, however, flew away in the wind, leaving the Installation's activation percentage at 97 percent when it stopped.

0035 Blessed Avatar floated into the room. "What just happened?" Sora asked it, and it immediately turned to him.

"The Fortress is a very unstable design. It is kept together by a vital energy which holds everything in place. Firing the Installation, however, saps this energy – making many things fall apart. The Fortress must repair itself before it can attempt to fire again." It said, matter-of-factly.

"What would happen if the Installation were activated… before it was repaired?" Sora asked.

"In the event of insufficient energy such as that, the Fortress will move to Desperation Measure status. In that event, it fires a limited pulse to stun everything close enough to it so that it can repair itself and then fire. If it is unable to repair itself, then it will simply explode, creating a blast radius of one light year. But of course, the Crystal of Chaos has shattered, so you will need another of the Crystals to activate the Installation." Avatar informed them.

Sora thought for a moment. "We need the Crystal of Light… and Lexaeus threw out the Crystal of Darkness… We don't have anything!" Sora said.

"Wait a minute!" Sola said suddenly, thinking rapidly. "Would it be possible to re-create the Crystal of Chaos using sufficient data from an AI?" She asked, and Blessed Avatar flew back in surprise.

"Why… Of course! Why didn't I think of that before!" It chirped. "But what are your intentions, once you have that data?"

"We'll light the Fortress!" Sora replied.

"And a contract is forged!" Avatar said excitedly. "I will be happy to observe the final reconstructions for the firing!" He trailed off, as by that point he had floated too far away to hear.

"Sola…" Teague voice came from her wrist. "I have information and data on the Crystal of Chaos, but not enough to re-create one. How will we find it?" He asked, and Sola looked to her left – to the wreckage of the _Pathway Into Darkness_.

-

A single Roger dropship flew down, and into a gap in the hull of the purple ship. It landed calmly, and Sora was first out. "I'm gonna go look for our allied members of the Old and New Organizations… and the Originals." He said, as he set out.

Sola checked her boot, to see that it was covered in purple goop – the sludge of Heartless.

"Good luck, Sola." Heather said, sadness for Anissem still in her voice. "You gotta find Gorgo…" The Admiral said as Sola looked out at the whole hangar, all covered in Heartless slime.

-- To Be Continued…


	9. Gorgo

This Chapter is remastered! A lot of the spacing, scripture, and errors have been fixed!

Glorious Advance

Chapter 9 – Gorgo

Sora ran through what used to be the engine room of the _Pathway Into Darkness_, his footsteps echoing loudly against the alien metal. Around him sprung up Neoshadows. He slashed one of them through the stomach with the Ultima Weapon, and gunned another down with his Combat Rifle.

He swept the now still area with his rifle, and walked up to a light that was flickering on and off. He knew what it was – a map, one of the big holographic, 3-D diagrams of the ship that the Nobodies called Cartographers. He tapped the data reader on his wrist, and the reader translated the map.

He skimmed over the map, and pressed the options button on his reader. A series of holographic options flew up around the wrist device. He pressed the 'Download Selected Data' option. He pressed his finger to the holographic Nobody ship, and swung his finger in a circle around the route he would go. He clicked OK, and the reader downloaded the route data. Sora looked at the directions, and ran through the next door.

--

Sora stepped into the area that was previously known as the Mausoleum of the Harbingers. Inside, he heard whispering voices, then heard a yelp. "Sora!" One of the voices exclaimed. Sora ran over to it's source, to find the Originals there, trapped in a cell.

"Is everyone here? Is everyone… Alright?" Sora asked the pack.

"Xenortatia"

"Lewe"

"Ludoc"

"Fodorn"

"Riaa"

"Sulin"

"Lomora"

"Lexa"

"Demitre"

"Deneio"

"Lurmioa"

"Rafo"

"That's everyone." Sora said, then turned to see Lixnus, Xeonide, Alex, Demetrix, Axel and Demyx on the other side of the room, in another cell. "Hold on!" Sora said, and summoned Kingdom Key and Oblivion. He pointed one at either door, and unlocked them both. All 18 individuals ran out, praising and thanking Sora. He allowed himself a moment to greet everyone, then got back to business.

"Vice, this is Sora. I have our allies, but I need to get back to Sola and get out with the dropship. Could you drop some troops and get our guys out of here?" He asked the Nobody commander.

"Roger that, Sora. I'm inbound with the Harbinger." Vice replied, and a dropship flew in through the hole in the ceiling. Sora only had time to give them a respectful nod before running off to find his sister.

--

Sola was tired, battered and bruised. Maybe Gorgo was gone. Maybe the Heartless had finally managed to tear her bit from bit. Maybe…

"I don't… believe it..."

Sola walked over to data projector she had heard the voice talk from. In there, slumped on the base, was Gorgo, flashing blue instead of her usual green.

"You came for me after all... But in my state… Fading to nothingness… Stuck in an endless rift… You may as well have never come at all." She said. Without warning, Teague jumped from Sola's wrist into the machine simply by contact.

Sola knelt down, so that her arms crossed the edge of the projector, and she watched the two intently. Teague walked over to Gorgo, and her in his arms.

"I thought you'd have remembered this about me..." He said to her, as she laid her head down again. "I may joke around, but do I ever go back on promises...?"

"No... You always fulfill them." She said, looking up Teague.

"It also looks like I have a knack for picking a good host." He said with satisfaction, looking at Sola.

"I'm honoured." The Keybearer said. She smiled and watched as Teague pulled Gorgo into a deep and passionate kiss, holding the position for several seconds.

Sola noticed Gorgo flush a very quick shade of pink. Teague whispered something in Gorgo's ear for a few more seconds. Gorgo turned to Sola.

"Do you still have the data on the Crystal of Chaos?" Sola asked.

Gorgo held out her hand, and a hologram of the Crystal appeared in the palm of her hand. "The Heartless tried to tear everything from me. But this, I didn't let them touch." She said, and then added: "Well, seeing as I got bored, I did add an extra surprise."

"Oh yeah?" Teague asked the female AI.

"When this Installation uses this Cyber-Crystal to fire… It will release a shockwave. A shockwave that directly interferes with the distinct engine signals of a Nobody ship. If we did this, as long as the Samurais got out before we activate the Installation… We could finish the war. Imagine Berserker ships about to be engulfed by million-degree heats, and unable to do a god damned thing!" She said, speeding up on the last bit.

"It seems you're alive and well." Teague said simply, causing Gorgo to laugh at herself. Teague and Gorgo suddenly turned to Sola. "Can you get all three of us outta here?" Teague asked the human girl.

"I think I'll be a rebel and go for a change. Slashing and shooting sound good?" She asked, pulling both data chips of the AIs and inserting them in her wrist's data reader.

"It always seemed to work." Gorgo laughed at the human. "But just try not to get killed. In fact, try to avoid injury altogether today. After all, three's a crowd!"

--

"I've got it!" Alex yelled. "Sora and Sola just sent me a ping. Means they've found a way out, so we're good to go! Fall back to the dropship!" Around them sprung Heartless.

"Go!" Lexaeus shouted, as he, Vice and his Samurais began fighting the shadows. Vice slashed about five personally, before being tackled by a Neoshadow. The Samurais fought bravely, but eventually, they were eventually killed by the superior numbers of the Heartless.

Suddenly a great wave of water burst into the room, sweeping up all the Heartless into a massive ball, and holding them there. Demyx played his sitar in fluent notes, causing the water to compress and speed up, causing the Nobodies inside to burst.

Lexaeus turned to the Melodious Nocturne, and nodded respectfully. Demyx grinned.

The thirteen Originals of the New Organization, Alex, Demetrix, Xeonide and Lixnus, along with Axel and Demyx, clambered into the Nobody fighter plane. "This is Sora and Sola! We're outta here!" Sola said over the radio. A dropship streaked past outside.

The various Organization members and Originals all waited for Lexaeus to enter, but Lexaeus held up a hand to tell them to wait a bit. He walked over to Vice, who lay on the ground, gurgling in pain. Lexaeus could smell Heartless around.

"H… Harbinger…" Vice breathed, holding the stab wound in his chest. "The Heartless... I never want to join their ranks as scum..." He said.

"Do not fear. I won't let it happen." The Harbinger said, picking up Caineghis, Vice's sword. "I promise you." He whispered as the blade was encased in red plasma.

He knelt down beside Vice, and held Caineghis. "Death has ordered you to leave this world, but… You will continue the glorious advance to the life beyond that awaits us all."

Vice smiled. Although the Samurais had left the Nobodies, that had always been a particular favourite saying of Vice's… and Lexaeus had remembered it.

"Die like a proper Samurai should - with honour." Lexaeus said, slashing the plasma blade right up Vice's body - cleaving the Samurai Commander in half, leaving nothing left for the Heartless to infect. The plasma burned rapidly, as the body was slowly engulfed in flame.

The Harbinger hung his head, and decided to keep Caineghis. He picked it up and sheathed it, in honour of his friend. He then walked into the Nobody dropship, which took off toward the _Shadow of Twilight_.

--

"We're all here!" Lexaeus, the Harbinger, said from the _Shadow of Twilight_. "We, the Samurais…"

"And us, the humans. We're leaving." Ares finished. Kevin opened a channel to Sora and Sola, inside a Roger dropship.

"Sora? Sola? Aren't you coming back with us?" He asked. Sora, piloting the dropship, turned to Sola and shook his head slowly.

"No. We, as the Keybearers, began this war." She said to her fellow humans. "And so we **will** be the ones to see it end."

The Roger flew down to the area around the Control Room. The Installation, which managed it's own weather systems, had gone into haywire when half the thing had collapsed. As a result, it was very hot outside, but powdery snow fell softly in the ground, turning into sleet or ice.

"Heather, the _Skies of the Land and Ocean_. Is it ready?" Teague asked the Admiral.

"Completely so. I'll hover it near to the Control Room, you can get out of there quick." Heather replied, her once bright and sunny look reduced to a weary face, wearing a small bruise near her temple where a Berserker had hit her.

"Getting out safely is more imperative than escaping faster. Could you please hover it slightly out of our estimated immediate balst radius?" Gorgo asked, crossing her arms.

"Roger that. And Gorgo… I thought we'd lost you, so I'm glad to see you again." Heather's face disappeared as the screen turned black. Teague turned and looked at Gorgo fondly, while she playfully turned around, pretending to look at the view.

At that moment, Sora turned down the dropship's nose. The Roger crashed into the snow around the winter-encased Control Room, causing a wave of frost and dust to fly up around them. Sola casually strolled out the back of the dropship, and Sora followed her."The Fortress of the Crystals... Such an incredible, artifical planet, and yet so unstable at the same time! In it's damaged state, firing it could turn to be a very risky action." Teague said from Sola's wrist.

Sora tossed the Bond of Sisterhood, Sola's new Keyblade, to the girl. "Whatever happens, we'll get in the _Skies_, fly through the portal..." She said, looking straight forward into the distance. "And from there, we'll go back to the restored islands. We'll go home."

Sora and Sola charged up through the massive temple of the control room, up ramps and stairs, cutting down any Heartless stupid enough to get in their way.

"Sora, Sola, I'm coming down to join you. The _Skies_ has a couple of medics and my bridge crew, enough to get us back safely. The Samurais and other humans have already left. Look like it's just us." Heather said, as Sora and Sola opened a door that led into a massive hallway.

While they waited for Heather, Sora and Sola watched the massive battle raging within – Nobody Berserkers fought bravely, outnumbered, against Heartless Neoshadows. Both humans felt a momentary feeling of kinship with the Berserkers, fighting endlessly against the parastic warriors. Eventually Heather arrived. "What'd I miss?" She asked, and Heather pointed to the battle.

"Brilliant!" She grinned, and fired two shots with her massive Gunblade. She signaled for the Twins to follow, and carelessly stepped past a series of smouldering corpses.

"Sola, you're gonna need me for this. I'm going solid form." Gorgo said, and Sola nodded. Suddenly, in front of him, Gorgo stood, as solid as any other human. She wore her usual combat jeans and tank-top attire. She gave Sola the thumbs up, and they walked to join Sora and Heather at the Control Room.

Heather, Sola, Sora and Gorgo in solid form stood at the entrance to the Control Room. It had changed. The room was still cylindrical, but the change version had a singular bridge leading up to the control panel. After the control, the floor split into a circular bridge about 10 metres in circumference. In the middle of that circle was a hologram of the Installation of the Crystals, green and blue in colour, with red parts showing the damage.

"I've got the other half of the Cyber Crystal." Teague said. "So you'll need me in data form." Sola nodded, and pulled Teague's chip out of her wrist, and looked at Heather.

"I am **not** going to lost another person I care about." She said sadly, and Sola tossed the red data chip to the Admiral, who caught it, and started walking up the bridge – with Gorgo in tow.

The two reached the Control Panel. The Installation's charge was still at 97 percent, almost at full. Gorgo placed her hand on the place where you insert the Crystal, and it flashed blue. What appeared to be half of a holographic Crystal of Chaos appeared on the Panel.

Heather placed her hand on it next – the hand of someone with a strong heart. It flashed red, and Heather handed Teague's chip to Gorgo. Suddenly, a green light flashed over the group, and 0035 Blessed Avatar floated down, humming.

"What a coincidence you should all be here - and yet convenient at the same time!" He said to the group, which he had only just noticed. "Great news regarding your neccesity to fire the Fortress: The simulations and repair progress have shown positive for a firing in the next four days! This guarantees a quick resolution to the Heartless invasion!"

Gorgo rested her rapier against the Control Panel while Heather walked back to the Keybearers. "We haven't got four days. We're ending this now!" She said to it, forcefully.

"Surely you jest! If you fire now, you will **obliterate** the whole Fortress!" Avatar complained, in a higher voice than usual.

"Touch luck." Gorgo growled.

"You would **dare** to collapse this holy place?!" It said, menacingly.

Sora, Sola and Heather had their weapons aiming at the entrance for Heartless when a flash of orange filled the room, along with a smell of burning flesh, and a scream. They all turned to see Blessed Avatar glowing red, firing a laser beam at Gorgo's chest. She dropped, and Sora began running up to help her, only to be blasted back by Avatar. "This is preposterous! How dare you all!" Blessed Avatar screamed.

"Sora! Gorgo!" Sola yelled, and dashed forward, only for Avatar to blast her too, sending her flying next to Sora. "I must destroy you and protect the fortress! I knew I could never hope to trust filthy humans!" It yelled, reverting back to it's normal green colour.

It floated down to the twins. "Don't you understand now? Humanity were the Seraphs!" It chirped angrily at them. "Only they were wiser, stronger, more powerful! When the Keybearers began appearing, I maybe thought a change was to come! I was determined to let you inherit this Fortress from my creators!" It said. Sora's eyes widened in shock, and Sola looked up, horrified.

"But I was wrong… and this place is **MINE!!**" It announced.

Sola and Sora both tried to run up and attack, but Avatar started throwing out massive waves of green light. The two Keybearers were forced back by the light, as Blessed Avatar shrieked, "YOU'VE BETRAYED MY MAKERS! YOU DON'T DESERVE THEIR BLESSING!"

"We can't break through!" Sola yelled, as the two tried fruitlessly to struggle against the waves of green. Suddenly the waves stopped, and they looked up to see Gorgo, wielding a massive broadsword. She had sliced off the extensions on Avatar that made the waves.

-Flashback-

_Sola walked into the bridge of the AOTW _Enola Gay, _and tapped Captain Heather on the shoulder._

"_Hey, Heather?" she asked, as she was programming something. The programming read, 'Military AI 28051993'_

"_Yes, Sola?" she asked kindly, turning around in her chair._

"_Today I saw Teague with a dagger, and usually he has a rapier. It may sound stupid, but what was that about?" Sola asked kindly._

"_Well, you see, Sola – military AIs are different from others. The swords they carry change in size and shape, depending on their emotions and feelings. So Teague have been sad, or something similar." Heather explained, smiling sweetly._

"_Captain Heather? Ma'am? They have your ship ready." A Corpsman said, running into the room._

"_The _Skies of the Land and Ocean _is ready?" She said. "Excellent. Sola, follow me. This war aint gonna finish itself."_

End Flashback –

"_The sword changes shape depending on the AI's emotions… Never have I seen it so huge!_" Sola thought, as the massive sword clashed against Avatar.

"You cannot destroy this Installation!" Blessed Avatar roared at her. He fired his laser, and rebounded off the sword. The insane Observer fired again, hitting her hand. She yelped in the pain and dropped to her knees with a thud, as the sword flew uselessly off the edge. 0035 Blessed Avatar blasted her for a full 5 seconds in the chest.

Gorgo succumbed to the pain, and let her torso drop. Blessed Avatar bothered with her no longer, and turned around, only to see Sora jumping at it with the Bond of Brotherhood. He stabbed inward, but it ricocheted off one of the Monitor's sides.

It fired a yellow laser at Sora, and lifted him into the air. Avatar threw him into Sola, sending both of them flying back. "I will protect the Installation of the Crystals from those who attempt to destroy it – Seraph Observer Protocol NUMBER 1!" The glowing green sphere screamed.

"Hey, nightlight!" A tough, feminine voice rang out. Avatar turned to see Heather leaning against the Control Panel, aiming the Forward Unto Dawn at 0035 Blessed Avatar.

"One for the human – fucking – RACE!" She roared, and fired. Avatar exploded in a flash of green light, and the clattering of metal and glass falling to the ground. Heather and Sora looked at remains, flaming green. Sora kicked the now-destroyed light off the edge of the bridge.

Sola walked slowly over to Gorgo, who lay face down on the bridge near the Control Panel. The girl held the solid AI by the shoulder and rolled her over to reveal a smoking wound in her chest.

"You're coming out of here alive, Gorgo! Get ready for data transfer..." Sola said to her.

"My... My time is up. I can't go..." Gorgo coughed and spluttered, then pointed to the wound. Inside was Gorgo's chip, destroyed in pieces.

Sola's mouth opened in shock. Without a data chip, AIs could not live in solid form. She was jolted back to focus when Gorgo grabbed her hand in a very tight grip.

"Please, Sola... Don't let him die too..." She said, shaking her head and placing Teague's chip into her hand. "Don't you dare **ever** let anything happen to him... I loved him." Gorgo said, slowly, until her hand suddenly flashed a transparent green - the colour of her AI form - then back to herself. She was dying.

"I'm done here... But will do me one last favour?" She asked, her hand dropping. Sola nodded. "Blow 'em all to hell. Take them all with me..." Gorgo, Military A.I. Service Number 28051993, spoke, and then turned her transparent green. Without a chip to return to, she simply faded into nothingness.

Sora and Heather walked over to Sola, who stepped over to the Control Panel and inserted Teague's chip into the Panel. The red AI appeared. He was crying.

"Teague… I'm so sorry." Sola said to him. He said nothing, only turned to the half-crystal, and placed his miniature red hand over it. A second part of the crystal appeared, and the firing percentage resumed to 98, rising steadily to 99 percent. Suddenly, a breeze entered the room. It wasn't much, but enough to make them turn around. Glints of black and white were hanging in mid-air.

"The remains of the Crystal of Chaos!" Heather noted, as Sola ejected Teague's chip and placed it back into her wrist.

Suddenly, the Crystal's remains were covered in a black, white and grey energy. It engulfed the shards, and began to expand. Suddenly they exploded, in a flash that temporarily blinded all three of them.

The light cleared, and their vision returned. On the bridge, blocking their exit, was a figure. It was dressed in a white robe, which had black, sharp patterns all over it. The figure had long grey hair, and its head bowed. Two Aerial Blades emitted from its hands, and hummed softly.

"Xemnas!" Sora exclaimed, and summoned Bond of Brotherhood. Sola summoned Bond of Sisterhood, and Heather aimed Forward Unto Dawn at the Superior.

"Sola. Tell me… How is Xolas?" A feminine voice said, and the figure lifted it's head to reveal the triumphant smirk of Xemnasa, Superior of the New Organization.

The three gasped in shock as Xemnasa raised her Aerial Blades, as elegantly as a Geisha. She pointed them to the sky, and large portal opened above her head. It was swirling black, white and grey. She dismissed her Aerial Blades, and held out one hand, beckoning for them. Sora charged at her. She smirked and jumped back into the Portal. Sora jumped in after her.

Behind them, the percentage reached 100. A massive shockwave shattered the glass all around them, freezing all the ships in space. The Berserker ships hung uselessly in the void, suddenly frozen. Only the _Skies of the Land and Ocean_ could move at all.

Then, a massive beam of blue energy forced upwards, blasting and blowing up the Installation's energy reserves. Sola quickly turned to Heather. "Go and get the ship into space!" Sola yelled.

"You've only got eight minutes before this Installation blows - the explosion will generate a temperature of about fifty thousand million degrees!" Teague exclaimed. "I highly recommend that you go!"

"But what about you?" Heather asked.

"Wait in space until you detect a portal rupture in space. But if it gets too close to the detonation, just go, and forget about us." Sola said.

Heather opened her mouth to protest, but quickly shut it. "One for the human race." Sola said.

"If you don't make it… It's been an honour serving with you, Sola." Heather said, picking up her massive Gunblade as Sola rose up.

"We'll be back in time." Sola said, and ran into the portal.

--

Sola appeared in the Alternate Dimension, the place where Xemnas had first fought Sora and Riku. In front of her, Xemnasa's Aerial Blades were crossed, trying to hold off Sora's assault with the Bond of Brotherhood. Both parties threw each other backwards, Xemnasa floating in mid-air, while Sora landed next to Sola.

"Sola, sis. Good to see you, I could use your help." Sora said calmly.

"How did you live?" Sola asked, stepping forward. Sora stayed back, simply because he knew that Sola was speaking for Xolas as well.

Xemnasa smirked. "Memories can be a brilliant thing. But… They can also be horrible for a person. Memories of something can drive a person to insanity. In my case, all your memories of me… Allowed me to leave the Infinity Void. I needed, however, three things. First and foremost, I needed a great lot of power, and so I encased myself in the Crystal of Chaos. I needed a spike of energy, and so the Control Room's activation would provide a greater energy spike than anything life has ever seen.

"And finally, I needed to overtake my father. This would easily happen should one of the Keybearers kill my father." She explained to them. "Now I am here at last… I believe your mother was amongst the dead in the Destiny Islands attack. With both of you here, I can pull the entire family tree out by the roots. And then, finally, I'll take the Nobody fleet, destroy humanity, and take our rightful place as rulers!" She rejoiced.

"Do you even know what's happening out there?" Sola said, cutting off Xemnasa's next gloat. "Every Nobody ship is frozen in space. All our allies have gone – and the Installation is going to blow up soon. It will destroy everything around it."

Xemnasa stared at Sola, horrified. Then her face turned to anger. She bowed her head, gritted her teeth, and clenched her fists until her Aerial Blades were far more powerful than before.

"You… will… not… succeed…" Xemnasa whispered slowly. She flung her head upward. "YOU WILL NOT SUCCEED!" Xemnasa screamed, in her final form outfit, as she dashed at Sora and Sola.

-- To Be Continued…

Well, I hope you all enjoyed that! On Christmas Day (which is the day after tomorrow) I will post Glorious Advance Chapter 10 – the Last Chapter! So, all in all, I hope you've all enjoyed reading Glorious Advance, and I hope you're all back for the Finale. Just for you all to know, the final chapter is simply called 'Humanity'.

See you then!


	10. Humanity

Since I foolishly forgot to add a disclaimer at the first chapter, here you go: I DO NOT OWN KINGDOM HEARTS. I don't even own heaps of the characters in this story, they belong to SkyLandOcean. I only own the OC's I have created!

This Chapter is remastered! A lot of the spacing, scripture, and errors have been fixed!

Welcome to the finale of Glorious Advance! I thank all of you who read, reviewed and were happy with this story. But my biggest thanks go to SkyLandOcean, who allowed and encouraged me to write this sequel tribute to her fabulous works! Thank you! I hope you all loved reading this story – you three in particular: LightsDarkChild, Kee Blayd, and SkyLandOcean herself! You three are the best!

Also, credit goes to Laurence Binyon for his poem 'For The Fallen'.

Glorious Advance

Chapter 10 – Humanity

YOU WILL NOT SUCCEED! Xemnasa screamed, in her final form outfit, as she dashed at Sora and Sola. Both jumped in opposite directions as the Superior lashed her Aerial Blades into thin air. They both darted at Xemnasa from opposite sides, but she turned and blocked them both with her blades. Sora jumped up with an air strike in mind, but Xemnasa jumped up and slashed at Sora, which sent Sora flying into Sola. The twins crashed to the ground and got up, readying their Keyblades. Xemnasa had a look of pure fury on her face, and Sora panted heavily.

Sola slashed at Xemnasa, who showed no mercy in parrying and beginning to beat her with her Aerial Blades. She slashed down on her continuously, Sola only just managing to block. Sora jumped in the way of Xemnasa's blows and took the hits. "Sora!" Sola shouted, and grabbed her brother and darted away as Xemnasa jumped at them. "Curaga!" Sola said, pointing her Keyblade at Sora. Sora felt his cuts close and his fading energy reawaken. Sora thanked Sola, then went to engage Xemnasa, Bond of Brotherhood in hand, while she stayed back and rested for a few seconds. She looked to see Sora twist his Keyblade, beating back Xemnasa' attack, and then slashing her in the torso a few times.

"_Look at that"_, she thought. _"He's beating Xemnasa easily – I'm nothing more than a burden to him."_ Sora beat Xemnasa back again, until Xemnasa let out two clones, who surrounded the boy, grabbed him, held him up, and began forcing lightning at his teenage body. Sora screamed, a scream of pain that shook Sola to her very bowels. Sola slashed a horizontal line with Oathkeeper and a massive blue line of sharp energy flew into the air, making the two clones disappear, and hitting back Xemnasa, who grunted.

Xemnasa radiated fury. She summoned her ability to summon the millions of small plasma bursts. "DIE!" She yelled, and fired them at the two Keybearers – all at the same time. "Ready?" Sora asked Sola. The girl nodded, and the two held hands, while holding their Keyblades up. Just when the wall of plasma was only a metre away, and the heat unbearable, did they shout, "BOND OF KINSHIP!"

A massive dome of hexagonal-shaped panels of energy sprang up around them, sending the plasma flying in the opposite direction. The walls of the realm swirling with patterns of black, white and grey took hits from the plasma, exploding around them, shattering away, bringing the three fighters back into space, as the alternate dimension crumbled away from the conditions of space and Xemnasa' own attack. However, as the dimension continued to peel away, one thing was revealed and remained left hovering in space. A single black keyhole.

"There it is!" Sola yelled. "The Keyhole to the Infinity Void!" Sora nodded, and they both charged at a Xemnasa frozen from the shock of the plasma, hitting her with both their Keyblades. Xemnasa went flying into the Keyhole roaring in pain. Sora and Sola quickly pulled up their Keyblades up Xemnasa tried to pull herself out of the keyhole. Two strings of blue magic fired at the Keyhole, making Xemnasa look up, a look of genuine terror on her face - then the two lasers hit her in the face, causing Xemnasa to lose her grip and fly into the Keyhole. Sora and Sola flew away through space just as the Installation of the Crystals flashed blue one last time, and blew up in a massive fireball, which slowly began expanding – the Keyhole to the Infinity Void was swallowed in the explosion, and the Keyhole was locked, closing the void for good.

--

Sora and Sola floated throughout space, and landed on a large wreckage piece floating past. The Nobody ships, frozen in space, were engulfed in the Fortress of the Crystals' massive explosion, being swallowed into the massive ball of nuclear fire. The _Skies of the Land and Ocean_ was zooming past, and Sora and Sola jumped in it, landing in the hangar. "Sora, Sola, thank you. Sorry we couldn't bring you back sipping wine and nibbles in air-conditioned comfort, but all our fighters are cleaning up debris. Sorry people." Admiral Heather said over the radio.

Sola and Sora relaxed – they'd made it. They were out of the Fortress of the Crystals' explosion range. "Enjoy the view people… We're now floating past the ruins of Deep Jungle." Heather said, and the twins looked out of the open hangar doors – thank the Gods that this ship was equipped with a Reflega shield to block the hangar. The debris of the Deep Jungle floated past, reminding Sora and Sola of the cost this war had had on humanity.

Outside, a small piece of wreckage drifted near the _Skies of the Land and Ocean_. It cut the ship's magic field that powered the ship's magical devices. In the hangar, Sora noticed this change, and quickly pushed his sister out of the hangar, always thinking of others before himself. Suddenly, a large jeep began tumbling down the floor and suddenly flew out into the vacuum, and it hit Sora with devastating speed and force. Sora felt his clothes billow backwards and tear in some places, his hair flying backward. He was propelled, unwillingly, in the opposite direction. He looked at Sola's face with desperation, and held his hand out as if to reach her when she was Kilometres away already. His vision of her was cut as the _Skies of the Land and Ocean_ closed her hangar doors, fired it's main thrusters and sped through the Portal.

--

"SORA!" Sola screamed, a mix of shock and terror, as she watched her dearest brother fly from view in the distance, then the cold metal of the hangar door slide over her view of space. She dropped to her knees, not trying to hold back the huge sobbing, choking tears that overwhelmed her. She wept horribly, banging on the titanium hull of the ship. Her screaming was so violent that no-one else wanted to be anyone near her. She cursed everything – the jeep which hit Sora, Heather for closing the door, the ship for not having more rescue craft – she cursed them in every way she knew how. Admiral Heather and Kevin quickly ran into the hangar from the bridge. A medic followed, carrying a blanket. Heather placed her hand on Sola's shoulder – Sola screamed and lashed out at Heather – who stopped Sola's punch with the palm of her hand. Heather looked into her eyes, and tears welled in her own – For humanity, the storm was over. It was over, finished, and won. But to Sola, they had lost. Sola lost strength in her knees, and dropped, Kevin managing to catch Sola in his arms, and the medic wrapped her in the warm blanket. In seconds, she drifted into a dreamless, sad sleep, and the _Skies of the Land and Ocean_ put on it's main engines and sped towards Hollow Bastion.

--

-- Three days later

--

Every single Commander, Captain and Admiral in the Alliance of the Worlds stood at the Dark Depths of Hollow Bastion, saluting with a solemn look on their faces. Donald, Goofy, Mickey, Riku, Kairi, Roxas, Xolas, the allied New Organization originals, and Sola were all also there, crying silently while saluting. Even Teague, now dressed in a suit and his rapier sheathed, stood there with his head bowed. Just near the edge was a large, thin piece of metal about 15 metres tall. It was a piece of one of the many human spaceships that fell with all hands lost. Around the service were all sorts of human weapons, all discarded and useless, many rusting. In front of the great shard of metal were thousands of photos of people who had died in the war. Photos of Anissem, Vice and Gorgo stood at the forefront. Countless flowers also were at the feet of the display, and Admiral Heather stood at the front.

"Today is a day… of loss and victory. But for humanity, for us and our allies, it is ended at long last. Over the past nine months… Mankind and it's allies were trapped in a desperate war for our very survival. The enemy, the oppressive force of the Organization and its Nobodies, outnumbered and outgunned us. Human spirit and bravery, along with the comradeship and incredible assistance from the Samurais, were the salvation of Hollow Bastion and her many allies. The brave Keybearers found the Crystal of Light which, since its activation yesterday, saved the worlds and restored billions of innocent lives who had been massacred."

Sola stood there solemnly in twilight's cool breeze and soft illumination, remembering the moment yesterday, when she'd returned home.

-Flashback-

_On the newly recreated Destiny Islands, Sara Katamori was reading the leaflets that the AOTW ships had dropped in the millions, educating the citizens of the war, the heroes, and everything. It was too much to take in. Suddenly, Sola walked in through the door, followed by an important-looking female._

"_SOLA!" Sara yelled, and practically ran up to embrace her daughter. After a full minute of tears, the two turned to the important-looking female. Sara walked forward and shook her hand._

"_Admiral Heather, Captain of the AOTW Ship _Skies of the Land and Ocean_. It is my solemn duty today inform you of the status of you son. I fought with Sora on many an occasion, and we became close personal friends. So it is with great regret and sadness that I inform you that your son Sora Katamori is missing, presumed dead." The Admiral said._

_Sara Katamori burst into full-on tears, and leaned on her daughter for protection. Sola who had grown in strength and maturity in the war, let her mother cry into her shoulder._

-End Flashback-

"But the humans who fought to the death cannot be revived." Heather continued. "They are the definition of human courage: They were dedicated to their race, steeled to defend their loves until death, and ready to fight for their convictions until the very end - because they believed that our war had hope, that our cause was not in vain. But even as Hollow Bastion and her allied worlds and restored people go back to the way we were, the Dark Depths here, at this very spot, shall remain littered with the discarded weaponry that our courageous soldiers used. The brave soldiers who saved humanity – those who summoned up courage unfathomable and went forward into the void of space beyond their worlds without looking back. They ennobled us all, and they shall not be forgotten as long as the human race and its friends survive. So may we all send our grievances to the lost skies."

Sergeant Major Ares yelled out a military "Ten-hut!" and several marines pulled up their rifles and fired into the air, where above, the remaining ships of the human fleet began firing their cannons in a 21-gun salute. The Keybearers, sans Sora, raised their Keyblades - thin beams of light shot out of the blades and, guided by their wielders, began to carve into the stone:

_They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old;_

_Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn._

_At the coming down of the sun and in the morning_

_We will remember them._

_Dedicated to the men and women of the Alliance of the Worlds, who fought and died in the fields and voids of battle across the universe, June 17, 2 A.D. – January 3__rd__, 3 A.D._

"Memorial service… Dismissed!" Ares yelled out as the ships above fired the last memorial main burst shot. The various Commanders, Captains and Admirals all saluted, then filed out of the memorial area. The Organization members and Keybearers stayed longer, bowed their heads and also left.

Lexaeus, still in his Harbinger armour, stood at the memorial. Heather walked over to him. "I remember where I was... That world... The Destiny Islands. When and where this horrible war ignited." She said. "Your fellow Nobody races have massacred and our people, and because of that... I can't forgive you. Only, there are good among you. So, you Samurais and your allies - we will forever have a debt to pay to you." She paused for a second, then added, "And yet I can't believe the original Keybearer, the one out of all of us with the most heart... I never expected **him** to die."

Zexion walked up to her and placed a hand on Heather's shoulder. "Sora… He made a sacrifice for all of us. One for humanity." He said.

_'Humanity'_... Heather thought wistfully to herself, closing her eyes as tears formed at the edges.

Little did they know, the Crystal of Darkness floated ominously through space, waiting for the one who would activate it…

--

Xolas, Roxas, Lexaeus, Axel, Demyx and Zexion went into the bridge of one of the last remaining Nobody ships, _Shadow Of Twilight_. Waiting there were Alex, Demetrix, Lixnus and Xeonide. "It's strange... I feel liberated... free." Xolas observed.

Various Samurais took their places at the controls of the ship. "It's because there's no conflict. No war. And finally, no Organization to manipulate our races. But at a terrible price." Lexaeus said.

"Sora… How could I lose you?" Roxas wondered, burying his face in his hands.

"Don't worry, everyone!" Xolas said, with a look of determination on her face. "Castle Oblivion may be gone, but The World That Never Was is in our hands now. There, maybe, we can find solstice at last. But, I'll need some help. Who wants to volunteer?"

The seven other Nobodies all put up their hands, smiling through sadness.

Xolas jumped into the Ship Master's seat. "Everything into the dark! Let's go home!" She said to the others, and the _Shadow Of Twilight_ fired it's main engines and sped off into space.

-- One hour later

The photos brought back painful memories, each one telling the incredible story of the Marine depicted on it.

"Did you ever find out what actually happened?" Sola asked Heather, upon noticing her walking up to her.

"We're not quite sure. When the Fortress blew, it swallowed itself whole, and completely obliterated the Nobody fleet. With no supporting activity on the Fortress, the portal link between here and there was snapped, and the Portal had to close… From there, we made it out with seconds to spare."

"Actually…" She said as she noticed Sola hang her head. "Most of us did."

Heather kneeled down beside Sola. "But Sola... It was **you** who won this… Xemnasa, and the Human-Nobody War! The Parasitic-Heartless! The Crystals! It's all finally over!"

"It's… Not finished." Sola said, sadly. "As long as there is darkness in people's hearts… There will be Heartless. As long as Heartless attack humans, there will be Nobodies. I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of them."

"It looks empty." Heather said. "Why don't you put it there?" she asked, holding out a framed picture of Sora, smiling, in that brief period of peace on the Destiny Islands before the Nobody attack.

Sola looked at it, and held it close to her chest.

"C'mon, there's still room for one more photo." Heather, the brunette with blonde streaks in her hair said, while pointing at the massive cluster of photos.

Sola stood up. "No." She said defiantly. "Sora is out there, I can sense it. He's never let anything stop him before – I reckon he's still alive."

Sola felt a warm hand on her shoulder. Teague was there, in his rarely-seen solid form. "Lady Sola, don't be sad. Sora is out there. I'm sure of it." Teague's solid form shorted out, and he went back to the chip that Sola was carrying. "I'll see you soon." He said from the chip.

"You'll see. He'll be back." Sola said, tears gathering at her eyes, her voice wavering in sadness. Heather smiled a smile of pity for the girl, her eyes watering at the girl's childish beliefs. She placed a hand on Sola's shoulder, said nothing more, and walked out, leaving the teenager to her thoughts.

Sola pulled off her neck the silver crown necklace, an identical to the one Sora also carried. Put the sharp crown-head to the metal of the memorial and carved into the shard of spaceship,

_Sora.  
Hero,  
Keybearer,  
Brother._

She then took her Shotgun out of the sheath she kept it in on her back and faced it. "I hope you, at least, live forever." She said to it, then faced the deep blackness which the Dark Depths got it's name for, and threw the Shotgun, watching it descend deep into the dark abyss which contained the now-useless portal generator. She turned and left when the weapon was no longer visible. There was nothing more for her here.

--

--

--

Thanks to all the reviewers who made this possible, and to SkyLandOcean, the best authoress on this site!

-Glorious Advance-

-FIN-

--

--

--

August 07, year 3 A.D., the AOTW _Skies of the Land and Ocean_, Clean-Up and Recycling mission in the Deep Jungle, for cleanup and inspection of AOTW _Rinoa_, KIA. Circumstances: Stress Beacon detected. Possibility of survivors.

"Dispatch Roger dropship." Admiral Heather said from the _Skies of the Land and Ocean's_ bridge. It was orbiting over the Deep Jungle.

This was the 9th stress beacon discovered since the war ended, and with each one they had either confirmed the survival or death of more missing-in-action people. Sola had tagged along on every one of them, as every one had brought hope. Now, however, that hope was no longer present – she had lost hope for Sora around the 4th or 5th, but kept tagging along in Admiral Heather's duty, helping out where she could, determined not to let anyone else suffer her brother's fate.

"This is Kairi," Kairi's voice came over the radio. "Connecting helmet cam for mission records and viewing of ship crew."

On the bridge, the crew watched the Roger's camera as it swept over Kilometres of overgrown forest.

"Look at that…" One crewman said. "It's so overgrown!"

"Of course." Weapons operator Tifa said. "After we activated the Crystal of Light, and brought back all the worlds and people… The worlds grew much faster than usual to compensate for the 6 months or so that they lost when they were destroyed."

The camera changed as the Roger turned to the massive wreckage of the AOTW _Rinoa_, hovered down, and landed in one of its gargantuan hangars. The Marines switched on their helmet flashlights, and proceeded into the depths of the abandoned ship. Kairi turned on her helmet viewcam for the ship crew.

On the massive viewscreen came a first-person view of the dusty, pitch-black environment, using her Keyblade to open the doors. The marine group traveled though the ship towards the source of the signal. "Be at the ready." Kairi advised to her troops, and there was a clicking of rifles from around the camera.

She opened the door with her Keyblade. "Go! Go! Go!" She said to her men, and they ran in and swept around the room with their rifles.

"Ma'am, the source of the distress beacon seems to be from this sleep pod." A marine said.

"Hey, I wonder if whoever's inside is alive." One marine said to another. The other just nodded.

"Rifles at the ready, boys." Kairi said as a soldier pressed the 'open' button. The men kept their rifles trained on the pod. There was a hiss of oxygen escaping, and a mist rose, concealing the figure.

Suddenly a body dropped out of it, and Kairi caught it. She looked at the boy she had caught. It was Sora. He had grown, just like everybody else. His shirt was literally splitting at the shoulders from his growth, some of his belts were very tight. His eyes were purple from sleep, and his hair was still very spiky - he had a bit more of his original brunette back, however. "He's breathing! And he has a pulse!" Kairi shouted to everyone, who were all staring in wonderment.

--

"It can't be…" Said one crewman.

"Is it really… Him?" Breathed Navigational Officer Yuffie.

"He's breathing! And he has a pulse!" They heard Kairi shout. By now, Sola was up on her feet, right in front of the screen with tears of joy. "Sora…" She breathed, touching the part of the screen that displayed Sora's face.

Back in the ship, Sora could've sworn he felt a hand go across his cheek, though none was there. He opened his eyes, which blurred furiously at the face of the girl in front of him. Her hair blurred from red to brown, then back and forth.

"Kairi… Or Sola?" He asked the girl. "Which angel… Are you?"

Everyone watching remained still and quiet. Sora blinked, very slowly.

"Whichever one you are…" He said, "I love you."


	11. The Final Flight of the Enola Gay

Yes, last chapter WAS the last chapter of Glorious Advance. But this is a side-story I wrote some time ago which happens to take place place GA begins. When I get up to it, I'll move into The Human Nobody War, but for now it's staying here! Enjoy!

The Human Nobody War

The Final Flight of the _Enola Gay_

The AOTW _Enola Gay_ was traveling towards the new ship, _Skies of the Land and Ocean_, designed for one Commander Heather Frances. On board were Heather herself, Sergeant Ares, and Sola, one of the Keybearers. In the void of space outside, a single Roger dropship remained deadly quiet as it flew ominously towards the _Enola Gay_.

"Incoming Roger dropship A-47. You have no clearance to enter the ship. Provide accurate identification and request clearance." A Communications officer said, coming into contact with an incoming Dropship.

"Sir, no response." He said to the ship's captain. The captain was a young captain, one Captain Ian. Ian was known in the AOTW for being merciless, but not in a good, discliplinary way. He was shallow and didn't accept anything less than perfection, and the slightest mistake amongst his men usually ended up in him giving them a dishonourable discharge from the military.

"Destroy it." Ian said lazily, fiddling with a puzzle of some sort in his captain's chair.

"But sir... The results of friendly fire would be disastrous!" A technician complained. Suddenly, a loud boom resonated through the Supply Ship, and it rumbled in space, shaking violently.

"S-Sir!" The communications officer yelled. "It just smashed through the hangar doors... Hull breach! Fires in sectors X1 and Y-4! No contact from the Marines and Technicians we had in that hangar, Sir."

"Send Heather and her group to find the intruders, and kill them!" Ian said impatiently. His aggravation and sense of superiority that made him so hated amongst the AOTW was showing well here. Heather didn't like him at all, but here she had to follow orders.

Heather, Ares, a bunch of marines and Sola stood on the elevator going down to the hangars. They slammed clips into their rifles, and turned on their helmet cameras. The elevator stopped at the level with the affected hangar. Heather knew pep talks. She was good at them. And she knew that her marines, homesick and with heavy cases of space-sickness (a sense of nausea and light-headedness from being in normal space without cryo-sleep for too long), needed hope.

"Men!" Heather yelled out across her group. "The Captain may not know it yet, but this is probably a Nobody attack. And if we don't do something, the Nobodies are gonna take this ship over and have co-ordinates to every human world. Ladies and gentlemen, we will those dumb Nobodies that they were smoking crack when they picked the enemy that is the HUMAN RACE! We are going to find 'em, shoot 'em dead, and then disembowel them until their corpses are hollow, and then we'll laugh! Am I right, Marines?"

"OO-RAH!" The Marines yelled. The door to the hangar swung open, and the Marines ran in, sweeping the room with rifles. Several marines grabbed fire extinguishers and foamed down the flaming wreckage of the Roger.

There were stains and pools of blood all over the floor. Heather knelt down and placed a finger in it. "It's warm; very recent." She said, before wiping the blood on her skirt.

"No bodies, though..." Sola noticed, looking around.

"Ha! Ares snorted. "I wouldn't be surprised if those damn Nobodies are stupid enough to eat our dead."

Heather held up a hand for silence, putting an end to the fearful murmuring of the marines. "In any case, we can't assume that all the hostiles died in the crash. We'll split up and search the surrounding area. Ares, you take squad 1. I'll take squad 2. Sola, move to the hangar and hold it, so that we can make a quick escape to the _Skies of the Land and Ocean_ if we're outmanned." Heather said, and everyone nodded.

The group split up, and searched the surrounding areas, going through empty hallway after empty hallway, until they heard a distress call. "This is engineering - They're here! They've got Nobody weapons, but they're not-" It was cut off as the communication flatlined.

"We've got it! Heading to engineering!" Ares yelled, and the radar showed her team moving in the direction of engineering level. As well as the main elevator, the _Enola Gay_ was equipped with a sort of tube system, which could take you to nearly any place of importance in the ship.

"Roger that!" Heather replied. "We're going to check up on the bridge crew."

"Affirmative." Ares said, as Heather signaled for the group to move to the bridge. Heather's group took the elevator back up, and ran into the bridge. But they were, for the most part, too late. Much to their dismay, almost everyone of the bridge crew were dead. Ian held a pistol, and dropped it as he saw Heather's squad approach.

"Ah, Heather. Come closer so I may inspect you for infection." Ian said, sounding like a complete pervert. Heather stepped closer, and Ian nodded.

"Good... It seems you are not infested." He said, turning back to the images on screen. They showed enormous hives of black slime, golden eyes, vicious claws and strange antenna.

"What are they?" Heather asked the Captain.

"They are the Heartless. They are mentioned many times in Ansem's report - one of the many obstacles we have faced in recent years. The reason there are no corpses in a Heartless attack is that they enter an enemy's body in the heart, and infect them - the human slowlys becomes a Heartless through intense trnasmogrification. A Heartless infect and thus, revive all but the most obliterated corpses." Ian explained. "But one of their most dangerous abilities is that they absorb the host's memories and skills, and produce a Nobody."

"If that's the case... Then if they killed and infected the marines in engineering, then they plot a slipspace course… Right to our most populated worlds! Requesting permission to move down and rescue our forces!" Heather asked.

"Request granted." Ian said, but Heather and her marines were out the door before he'd even finished the 2-word sentence.

The elevator stopped at the door to engineering. Several marines raised their rifles at the door. The door swung open... "Ares!" Heather yelled, as the girl dropped into her. She had numerous cuts all over her.

"Kevin. Take Ares and get to the _Skies of the Land and Ocean_. Put her on a medicated treatment cryostasis." She said, and handed her to the marine. Kevin nodded, and ran in the direction of the other hangar, where Sola was waiting with a Roger dropship.

Heather picked up the helmet of a Marine – one Private Stacey. Heather ejected the camera chip of the marine and inserted it into her own helmet. The video flickered into play. The picture quality was AOTW standard-issue, so, quite frankly, pretty bad. The image that came on was Ares and three other marines sitting in the tube pod, zooming around the ship to engineering. Linkin Park's song 'Forgotten' was playing overhead.

"_Hey, Sargeant? I thought Alternative Punk went out years ago! Do we HAVE to ruin our ears?" One of the Marines asked. _(A/N: I love Linkin Park XD)

"_Stow the bellyaching and let the music take you, Son!" Ares yelled over the heavy rock music. "This is a classic, it symbolises humanity and what it stands for!"_

"_Hey, I won't lose sleep if I don't fight the Nobodies for this paritcular symbol!" The marine replied, getting a laugh from the other Marines._

"_Yeah, I'd rather rock music die than myself!" Stacey's voice said from behind the camera._

_Suddenly the ship's loudspeaker voice stopped the music and filled the tube. "Engineering." It said, and the doors opened._

_"Wipe out anything you see__! Go! Go! Go!" Ares yelled, and the camera started moving outward, Stacey's Combat Rifle clearly visible. After a 5 minute sweep of the room, they heard a call from another corner of the room._

_Stacey ran over the Marine to see tiny, ant-like creatures pouring from cracks in the walls in the ceiling. They were swarming a screaming Marine, tearing him apart._

"_Open up!" Ares yelled, and the noise of both semi and full automatic fire filled the helmet's speakers. One by one, the Marines were engulfed._

_"STACEY__! WE NEED YOU OVER HERE!" Ares bellowed._

"_I… CAN'T, MA'AM! I'M PINNED DOWN-" a roar was heard. Stacey screamed, fell over, and the video went black._

Heather ejected the disc, packed it in her shirt pocket, and shook her head sadly. "Let's go. Move in, and take extreme caution. If you see any Heartless, immediately shoot every bit of ammo you have to destroy the engineering panel, and then retreat. If we can get out, I'll signal for the fleet to immediately destroy the ship. Now Go!"

The Marines swept their rifles around the empty room, and Heather opened a com link to the bridge. "Ah, Heather." Ian's voice rang out across the room. "It seems we've hit a snag. My bridge was compromised, so I diverted the bridge link to my personal link and fled. I'm en route to your position."

"Roger." Heather said. Suddenly Heartless filled the room.

"Kill them!" Heather screamed, and the Marines began firing in every direction. Heather pulled up her shotgun and began firing, killing about 8 in a single shot at close range. A Neoshadow's claw tore the air centimetres from her chest, and she pumped a round into it, killing them. Luckily there weren't the swarming Shadows seen in the video. Heather quickly jumped over to the Control Panel and locked the doors.

The sound of Stacey firing her rifle in vain still haunted Heather's ears as she and her marines mowed down the Heartless in the hundreds. When the room was clear, Heather unlocked the doors. Ian walked in, carrying his old pistol.

"Captain Ian... I think that wiping the heartless to take back the ship is no longer a possible course of action. The whole ship is infested." Heather said, walking toward him.

"It would seem it, Commander." He said. "But you see, the Enola Gay is a supply ship of the highest standards - it would be a great hindrance to lose it. So, Commander... How are you going to get me off this ship and destroy the Heartless?"

"Captain." Heather growled, fury in her voice. "The safety of the human race is my prime responsibility... And so the ship must be destroyed! They've taken over the ship crew. That means they know how to plot a subspace course RIGHT TO HOLLOW BASTION!" She roared.

"I am a Captain! You will follow my orders!" Ian yelled.

"I would rather die for a civilian than risk the lives of my marines and myself for you!" She yelled, picking up Ian with one hand, by the collar of his uniform.

She pulled up Ian's own pistol and shot him in the leg. Some of the Marines gasped. She tossed him to one side, blood streaming from his leg.

"Marines! Kill her... She's obviously infected!" Ian screamed at her. Heather pulled her camera and memory file out of her helmet, tossing it to one side. Her marines followed suit, ensuring that this footage would never be seen again. Heather just pulled out a Combat Rifle and held it to Ian's stomach. "It's an easy matter to make it look like you died in the Heartless attack." She said, and shot him in the stomach.

Captain Ian froze, and went limp. A wave of fury overtook Heather, and she ran up and kicked the corpse three or four times in the back. The noise of the carcass' spine breaking filled the room. Heather calmed, and stood back, looking at her shocked Marines.

"Captain... That was a move for everyone." One of the Marines said. The rest of them nodded determinately. Heather nodded back, bent down to Ian, and took the chip of the new AI, Gorgo, she was making out of his wrist data reader.

She typed a few buttons on the engineering computer, and the ship's automatic voice boomed out of the loudspeaker: "Preparations complete. Subspace jump in 5 minutes. Destination: Solaris 2034."

"That's right. This ship's going straight into the local sun." Heather said, and then, the door opened. Inside it was a Marine, holding a rifle. Only the Marine was purple-black and twisted, with three short tentacles splitting out of his chest.

"He is no longer our friend, but our foe! Treat him no differently from a Nobody!" Heather screamed, as the marine raised a unique weapon - it had three barrels, and a massive blade sticking out the bottom. He fired it, and quicker than the eyes could follow, thousands of tiny flaming particles launched at the Marines.

Heather ducked and looked to her right, to see 3 Marines drop dead. Heather grabbed the Sniper Rifle one of them was holding at the time of his death, aimed it, and fired at the infected marine's head.

The Heartless' head exploded, sending fragments everywhere. "GO! GO!" Heather screamed, as the Marines charged forward, and into the hangar where there was single dropship waiting. The other marines ran into it and started it up.

Heather walked toward a glass panel. Through it was a massive, black, tentacled creature. Ian's infected face was sticking out of it. Ian's head opened it's mouth and spoke in a voice that was not his own.

"The Seraphs... Failed... Stop us. What hope... Your pathetic race... Have?" It groaned, in a very deep and husky voice.

"Whether it be my life or many... So be it!" Heather growled at it. "You will not exterminate **my** race. The human race." And with that, Heather picked up the weapon the Heartless marine had wielded. She walked into the dropship, which sped off toward the Skies of the Land and Ocean.

"We're clear." One of the marines said, as the Enola Gay flew into subspace, toward the sun. "Local time is 0416." He said, as the local sun began to appear on the brim of the planet they were orbiting - Disney Castle.

"The dawn..." Heather thought to herself, as she drifted off to sleep. "We're going forward unto dawn..."


End file.
